Nuclear magnetic resonance-based metabolomics in respiratory medicine

Metabolomics investigates the chemical end products of biological processes in living systems. It combines high-throughput analytical techniques with bioinformatics to investigate and quantify, in a global (untargeted) and/or specific (targeted) manner, the metabolites present in living systems in response to any exposure (including therapeutics), lifestyle, environmental and genetic stress [1]. The unique profile obtained can provide direct information on a physiological status or on a sequence of events in an organism. Since the metabolome (i.e. all the endogenous metabolites of molecular weight <1500 Da) is a downstream system of the proteome and transcriptome it is amplified covering several aspects of a pathology [2]. Therefore, selection of an appropriate biomatrix (exhaled breath condensate (EBC), urine, serum, plasma, bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF), saliva or cell and tissue extracts) can shed light on several fields of medicine.

Source: European Respiratory Journal - October 4, 2018 Category: Respiratory Medicine Authors: Paris, D., Maniscalco, M., Motta, A. Tags: ERJ Methods Source Type: research