Metabolomics: From Fundamentals to Clinical Applications

Aline Soriano Lopes, Elisa Castañeda Santa Cruz, Alessandra Sussulini, Aline Klassen

Alessandra Sussulini

Amongst all omics sciences, there is no doubt that metabolomics is undergoing the most important growth in the last decade. The advances in analytical techniques and data analysis tools are the main factors that make possible the development and establishment of metabolomics as a significant research field in systems biology. As metabolomic analysis demands high sensitivity for detecting metabolites present in low concentrations in biological samples, high-resolution power for identifying the metabolites and wide dynamic range to detect metabolites with variable concentrations in complex matrices, mass spectrometry is being the most extensively used analytical technique for fulfilling these requirements. Mass spectrometry alone can be used in a metabolomic analysis; however, some issues such as ion suppression may difficultate the quantification/identification of metabolites with lower concentrations or some metabolite classes that do not ionise as well as others. The best choice is coupling separation techniques, such as gas or liquid chromatography, to mass spectrometry, in order to improve the sensitivity and resolution power of the analysis, besides obtaining extra information (retention time) that facilitates the identification of the metabolites, especially when considering untargeted metabolomic strategies. In this chapter, the main aspects of mass spectrometry (MS), liquid chromatography (LC) and gas chromatography (GC) are discussed, and recent clinical applications of LC-MS and GC-MS are also presented.