Ongoing research efforts that consider cancer as a disease of dramatically altered cellular metabolism have accelerated interest in snapshot metabolomics in various human tissues. In this issue of Leukemia Research, Petrick et al performed metabolomic analysis on newborn blood spots and found a number of unexpected ceramide and sphingolipid compounds that may play a role in the development and latency of pediatric acute myeloid leukemia (AML). The chemical complexity and range of cellular metabolites massively exceeds the relatively limited building blocks of the transcriptome or the proteome and has high potential to find novel leukemia-specific macromolecular synthesis pathways, metabolic vulnerabilities and biomarkers.

正在进行的研究工作将癌症视为一种细胞代谢发生显着变化的疾病，这加速了人们对各种人体组织中的快照代谢组学的兴趣。在本期Leukemia Research 中，Petrick 等人对新生儿血斑进行了代谢组学分析，发现了许多意想不到的神经酰胺和鞘脂化合物，它们可能在小儿急性髓性白血病 (AML) 的发展和潜伏期中发挥作用。细胞代谢物的化学复杂性和范围大大超过了转录组或蛋白质组相对有限的组成部分，并且具有发现新的白血病特异性大分子合成途径、代谢脆弱性和生物标志物的巨大潜力。