4130654601

REVIEW ARTICLE

published: 05 March 2015 doi: 10.3389/fbioe.2015.00023

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BIOENGINEERING AND BIOTECHNOLOGY

Analytical methods in untargeted metabolomics: State of the art in 2015

AmaidAionso¹², Sara Marsa I¹ and Antonio Julia¹*

■ Rheumatology Research Group. Valld'Hebron Research Institute. Barcelona. Spain ² Department of Automatic Control (ESAII), Polytechnic University of Catalonia. Barcelona. Spain

Edited by:

Adam James Carroll, The Australian National University. Australia

Reviewed by:

Masahiro Sugimoto, Kei University, Japan

Jianguo Xia. University of British Columbia. Canada

*Correspon dence:

Antonio Julia, Rheumatology Research Group. Valld 'Hebron Research Institute. Baldiri i Reixac. 15-21. Barcelona 08028. Spain e-mail: [e-mail]

Metabolomics comprises the methods and techniques that are used to measure the smali molecule composition of biofluids and tissues, and is actually one of the most rapidly evolving research fields. The determination of the metabolomic profile - the metabolome -has multiple applications in many biological Sciences, including the developing of new diagnostic tools in medicine. Recent technological advances in nuclear magnetic reso-nance and mass spectrometry are significantly improving our capacity to obtain morę data from each biological sample. Conseguently, there is a need for fast and accurate statistical and bioinformatic tools that can deal with the complexity and volume of the data gener-ated in metabolomic studies. In this review, we provide an update of the most commonly used analytical methods in metabolomics, starting from raw data Processing and ending with pathway analysis and biomarker identification. Finally, the integration of metabolomic profiles with molecular data from other high-throughput biotechnologies is also reviewed.

Keywords: metabolomics, nuclear magnetic resonance, mass spectrometry, untargeted, spectral Processing, data analysis, pathway analysis, integration