This is the experimental data collected and analysed for the paper (10.1371/journal.pone.0329092) "Raman spectroscopy identified fingernail compositional differences between sexes and age-related changes but not handedness or fingers in a healthy cohort", in which we discovered the differences of fingernail compositions using Raman spectroscopy.

Twenty male and 20 twenty female participants without known musculoskeletal or dermatological diseases donated nail clippings from each finger. The clippings were cleaned, and Raman spectra collected and analysed using a standardised protocol. Females have higher intensities of disulphide, protein, and lipid bands, particularly in their 40s, than males. Age-related changes were prominent in female nails, especially in sulphur-related bands. No significant differences were observed between nails from the left and right hands or among different fingers.

The raw spectral data were baseline corrected and normalised before the statistical analyses and outliers and poor quality spectra were removed in the dataset.

Please contact Dr Nai-Hao Yin (n.yin@lancaster.ac.uk) or Dr Jemma Kerns (j.kerns@lancaster.ac.uk) for queries.