简介:This review presents an overview of the dynamically developing
field of mass spectrometry-based metabolomics. Metabolomics
aims at the comprehensive and quantitative analysis of wide
arrays of metabolites in biologica简介:This review presents an overview of the dynamically developing
field of mass spectrometry-based metabolomics. Metabolomics
aims at the comprehensive and quantitative analysis of wide
arrays of metabolites in biological samples. These numerous
analytes have very diverse physico-chemical properties and
occur at different abundance levels. Consequently, comprehensive
metabolomics investigations are primarily a challenge for
analytical chemistry and specifically mass spectrometry has
vast potential as a tool for this type of investigation.
Metabolomics require special approaches for sample preparation,
separation, and mass spectrometric analysis. Current
examples of those approaches are described in this review. It
primarily focuses on metabolic fingerprinting, a technique that
analyzes all detectable analytes in a given sample with
subsequent classification of samples and identification of
differentially expressed metabolites, which define the sample
classes. To perform this complex task, data analysis tools,
metabolite libraries, and databases are required. Therefore,
recent advances in metabolomics bioinformatics are also
discussed.详细>