Metabolomics is the study of metabolism at the global level. This rapidly developing new discipline has important potential implications for pharmacologic science. The concept that metabolic state is representative of the overall physiologic status of the organism lies at the heart of metabolomics. Metabolomic studies capture global biochemical events by assaying thousands of small molecules in cells, tissues, organs, or biological fluids-followed by the application of informatic techniques to define metabolomic signatures. Metabolomic studies can lead to enhanced understanding of disease mechanisms and to new diagnostic markers as well as enhanced understanding of mechanisms for drug or xenobiotic effect and increased ability to predict individual variation in drug response phenotypes (pharmacometabolomics). This review outlines the conceptual basis for metabolomics as well as analytical and informatic techniques used to study the metabolome and to define metabolomic signatures. It also highlights potential metabolomic applications to pharmacology and clinical pharmacology.

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代谢组学：一种针对药物反应和疾病的全球生化方法。

代谢组学是在全球范围内对代谢的研究。这一迅速发展的新学科对药理学具有重要的潜在影响。代谢状态代表生物体整体生理状态的概念是代谢组学的核心。代谢组学研究通过测定细胞，组织，器官或生物流体中的数千个小分子来捕获全球生化事件，随后应用信息技术定义代谢组学特征。代谢组学研究可以增进对疾病机制的了解，并获得新的诊断标记，并增强对药物或异种生物作用机制的理解，并增强预测药物反应表型个体差异的能力（药代代谢组学）。这篇综述概述了代谢组学的概念基础，以及用于研究代谢组和定义代谢组学特征的分析和信息技术。它还强调了潜在的代谢组学在药理学和临床药理学中的应用。