metabolomics Flashcards
metabolites
are the substrates and products if metabolism that drive essential cellular functions like energy production, storage, signal transduction, apoptosis
metabolites are made
within the organism itself, and in microorganisms as well as xenobiotic, dietary sources
metabolites have a - molecular weight
low
metabolome
is the total pool of metabolites in a biological specimen
metabolomics
is the simultaneous and systematic determination of the metabolites in a metabolome and their dynamoc changes over time as a function of the applied stimuli
change in the metabolome is a consequence of
protein activity changes
why do we measure metabolites
- to know the underlying molecular network
- infer enzyme activities
- reflective of any observable phenotype
- diagnostic function genomics
- they are able to control the metabolome
what are the different approaches for investigating the metabolome
- metabolic fingerprinting
- metabolic targeting
- metabolic profiling
- metabolomics
what are the steps for a metabolomics experiments
- extraction of metabolites from specimens
- separation
- detection
- identification, quantification
separation techniques
- gas chromatography
- high performance liquid chromatography
- capillary electrophoresis
detection techniques
- nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy
- mass spectrometry
- combination of separation and detection techniques
NMR pros and cons
pro: no/little sample preparation, is a universal detector, non destructive
con: low sensitivity, results difficult to interpret, poor quantification, expensive
