Abstract

Metabolomics is a young field of knowledge that arises linked to other omics such as genomics, transcriptomics, and proteomics. This discipline seeks to understand the performance of metabolites, identifying, quantifying them, and thus understanding its mechanism of action. This new branch of omics science shows high potential, due to its noninvasive character and its close relation with phenotype. Several techniques have been developed to study the metabolome of biological samples, fundamentally nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), mass spectrometry (MS) and vibrational spectrometry (VS) or a combination of several techniques. These techniques are focused to separate, detect, characterize, and quantify metabolites, as well as elucidate their structures and their function on the metabolic pathways they are involved. However, due to the complexity of the metabolome, in most cases it is necessary to apply several of these techniques to understand completely the whole scenery. This review is aimed to offer a summary of the current knowledge of these analytical techniques for metabolomics and their application to different fields as environmental, food or health sciences. Each technique shows different advantages and drawbacks depending on their technical characteristics and limitations, some factors, such as the aim of the study or the nature of the biological sample will condition the choice. Regarding their applications, NMR has been employed specially to identify new compounds and elucidate structures. The use of MS has gained popularity because of its versatility, easiness to be coupled to separation techniques and its high sensitivity. Whereas VS is widely employed for in situ studies, due to its nondestructive character. Metabolomics applications in different science fields are growing each year, due to advances in analytical techniques and combination with other omics that allow to increase the comprehension of metabolic processes. Further development of analytical tools is necessary to continue exploiting all the possibilities of metabolomics.

• Highlights

• Metabolomics seeks to understand the performance of metabolites and its mechanism of action

• Different metabolomics techniques have been developed and improved in the last years

• Metabolomics applications cover clinical, pharmaceuticals and food and environmental sciences

• This review is aimed to offer a summary of the current knowledge of these analytical techniques

摘要

代谢组学是一个年轻的知识领域，它与基因组学、转录组学和蛋白质组学等其他组学相关联。该学科旨在了解代谢物的性能，识别、量化它们，从而了解其作用机制。由于其非侵入性特征及其与表型的密切关系，组学科学的这一新分支显示出巨大的潜力。已经开发了几种技术来研究生物样品的代谢组，主要是核磁共振 (NMR)、质谱 (MS) 和振动光谱 (VS) 或几种技术的组合。这些技术专注于分离、检测、表征和量化代谢物，以及阐明它们的结构和它们在所涉及的代谢途径上的功能。然而，由于代谢组的复杂性，在大多数情况下，有必要应用其中的几种技术来完全了解整个情况。本综述旨在总结这些代谢组学分析技术的当前知识及其在环境、食品或健康科学等不同领域的应用。每种技术根据其技术特征和局限性显示出不同的优点和缺点，一些因素，如研究目的或生物样品的性质将决定选择。关于它们的应用，NMR 已被专门用于识别新化合物和阐明结构。MS 的使用因其多功能性、易于与分离技术耦合以及灵敏度高而广受欢迎。原位研究，由于其非破坏性的特点。由于分析技术的进步以及与其他组学的结合可以增加对代谢过程的理解，代谢组学在不同科学领域的应用每年都在增长。有必要进一步开发分析工具以继续开发代谢组学的所有可能性。

• 强调

• 代谢组学旨在了解代谢物的性能及其作用机制

• 不同的代谢组学技术在过去几年中得到了发展和改进

• 代谢组学应用涵盖临床、制药以及食品和环境科学

• 本综述旨在总结这些分析技术的当前知识