Metabolic profiling technologies

Schlotterbeck, G. et al., Metabolic profiling technologies for biomarker discovery in biomedicine and drug development, Pharmacogenomics, 7(7), 1055, 2006. 

There are multiple tools and technologies being developed to assist in metabolic profiling. Many of the approaches contain mass selective detection that is incorporated due to its enhanced sensitivity and selectivity. Several good overviews... 

Interpretation of complex metabolic profiles and communication of lab results to clinicians has been one of the greatest challenges in dried blood spot analysis by MS/MS for acylcamitines and amino acids. Following its introduction, MS/MS defined numerous diseases of fatty acid and organic acid metabolism that were uncommonly encountered in a typical practice and not well understood by most pediatricians. Furthermore, even in disorders such as PKU that were well known, the improvements made by MS/MS screening for PKU compared with older technology such as BIA or fluorometry were not well... 

NMR spectroscopy is in many respects an ideal analytical technology for metabolic profiling because it is equally sensitive to all metabolites, it can provide quantitative results, direct analysis, metabolite identification, and broad metabolite class coverage. However, NMR spectroscopy gives information only for the abundant metabolites (due to the method s relatively poor... 

The impact of this technology is also felt beyond synthesis. Natural product isolation and stmcture determination is facilitated, as exemplified for pheromones by Doolittle tal- Environmental fate information may now be gained in laboratory studies, as shown by Brown and Kearney. And the particularly elegant work of Sauter sl> on metabolic profiling, which assesses how xenobiotics affect plant biochemistry across a broad range of processes, provides a guide for synthesis through rapid assessment of mode of action. 

The Fiehn Library is a mass spectral and retention index library for comprehensive metabolic profiling. The library comprises over 1000 identified metabohtes that are currently screened by the Fiehn laboratory. The compound list is continually extended. The Fiehn mass spectral library is commercially available for GC-quadrupole mass spectrometers from Agilent Technologies, and for GC-TOF mass spectrometers from Leco Corporation, see http //fiehnlab.ucdavis.edu/Metabolite-Library-2007/... 

Yu, S., Huang, D., Wen, J., Li, S., Chen, Y, Jia, X., 2012. Metabolic profiling of a Rhizopus oryzae fumaric acid production mutant generated by femtosecond laser irradiation. Bioresource Technology 114,610-615. 

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