Metabolomics is the scientific study of the set of metabolites is a cell, tissue or organism. The sets of metabolites are considered to be metabolomes. Metabolomics is somewhat of a new study and what it aims to do is to create metabolic profiles for healthy individuals so if these profiles can be compared to; let’s say a diseased person, we could determine only with small liver tissue extraction what’s wrong with the person and so on. A standard metabolic profile is hard to make since people have different lifestyles, diets etc. Metabolites are any organic molecule detectable in the body with a molecular weight of less than 1500 Daltons.
In a healthy person, endogenous metabolites are within the highest concentration. Then comes drugs, food additives/ phytochemicals, drug metabolites and lastly, toxins. So let’s say a person has a disease, we will see changes in these concentrations. Drugs may be higher in concentration than endogenous metabolites. Even if someone has a bacterial infection, toxin concentration levels may rise higher than its normal concentration.
Techniques such as mass spectrometry and other combined techniques are used to determine metabolite activity within a cell, tissue or organism. When quantitative methods of metabolomics are used, we can observe what metabolites are in the bio fluid which was taken from the cell, tissue or organism and how the interact. From this, we can determine a list of metabolic pathways and even see which metabolic pathways are being disturbed. Figuring this out can help doctors diagnose patients a lot faster and send them on their path to be cured.
USEFUL LINKS
References
User, Super. 2014. ‘Metabolomics Society’. Metabolomicssociety.Org. http://metabolomicssociety.org/.
Wikipedia,. 2014. ‘Metabolomics’. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metabolomics.
YouTube,. 2014. ‘Metabolomics’. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1svFdst5D8.
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