By measuring metabolite levels in an environment, be it the inside of the body or a polluted ecosystem, scientists can derive information about these environments. Altered levels of a metabolite in bodily fluids like urine or blood, for example, can show diagnostic biomarkers or even the cause of certain metabolic diseases.
Download this listicle to explore the use of metabolomics in:
- Diagnostics
- Personalized medicine
- Agriculture
Listicle
Metabolomics Applications: From
Medicine to Agriculture
RJ Mackenzie
Metabolomics studies tiny molecules produced and used by biological systems.1 These molecules are
.1
varied; the field analyzes everything from sugars and amino acids to toxins and drugs. By measuring
metabolite levels in an environment, be it the inside of the body or a polluted ecosystem, scientists can
derive information about these environments. Altered levels of a metabolite in bodily fluids like urine or
blood, for example, can show diagnostic biomarkers or even the cause of certain metabolic diseases.
2
Metabolomics is all about sweating the small stuff. The field focuses on molecules with a mass of less
than 1,500 Daltons. As a reference point, the hormone insulin has a mass of nearly 6,000 Daltons.
3
Compared to other -omics technologies, like genomics or proteomics, metabolomics stands alone in its
scale. The number of protein-coding genes in the human body – about 20,000 – is dwarfed by the human
metabolome, thought to consist of over 210,000 compounds
In this article, we’ll explore use cases that
.4,5
show how metabolomics has become a powerful tool across scientific fields, from diagnosing neurode
generative
disease to monitoring agricultural biotechnologies.
Metabolomics in personalized medicine
Technologies like metabolomics have significantly enhanced our ability to gather data about human
health. That additional data is essential to wider efforts to personalize medical treatments. Metabolomics
is particularly useful in this context because it captures real-time changes in our bodies that often aren’t
reflected in, for example, our genome.
.6
These changes begin at the earliest stages of life. One rich source of metabolomics information is the mi
crobiome
– the community of microbes that calls our body home. Recent research suggests the microbi
ome
can influence our risk of contracting diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease
and even certain cancers
.7
Metabolomics analysis opened a window into the microbiome’s formation during infancy. A recent study
recruited a cohort of infants and their mothers and grandmothers. The study analyzed the group’s fecal
samples using a combination of capillary electrophoresis, which separates metabolites by ion charge,
and mass spectrometry, which characterizes those separated ions by their mass.8 In partnership with
8
genomic analysis techniques, the study showed the differences between the infant and adult gut microbi
omes
in stark detail.
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