Metabolomics: Translating the Human Body
“You are what you eat” …and drink, breathe, smoke and consume. Our lifestyle – no matter if we are talking about nutrition, medication, substance use or even air quality – is undeniably reflected in the well-being of our bodies. In a way, health becomes our body’s answer, where chemists are the linguistic translators. In life science, Metabolomics has become a central field of study in the last couple of years that intends to address exactly those impacts on the human body. The relatively young field of research is based on high-resolution mass spectrometry. But before we can dive into the technology researching Metabolomics let’s clear out the basics first: What is Metabolomics? What makes this field of research so innovative? And how can SICRIT be of help? Find out in this article.
What is Metabolomics?
It is the scientific study of metabolic compounds in a biological system, which can be in a cell, in tissue, in breath, or even bodily fluids such as urine or blood plasma. These compounds are called metabolites and can be used as indicators for specific cellular processes. They originate on the one hand from the endogenous metabolism, such as amino acids, sugars, lipids, nucleosides, steroids, and alcohols, and on the other hand from exogenous substances that are ingested through food consumption and the environment.
With this insight into the metabolism, external influences on the human body can be analyzed, which can range from nutrition and substance use to chemical exposure in everyday life.
What is special about this field of research?
The innovative methodological approach of metabolomics is that, unlike classical analytics, it does not focus on specifically determining the absolute concentration of a few known metabolites. The goal of the analysis is to detect as many metabolites as possible, both known and unknown. The comprehensive detection of metabolites and the open-ended analysis are the greatest strengths of metabolomics. They make it possible to identify previously unknown differences between various samples.
Where does its potential lie?
Since metabolites directly reflect the physiological state of a cell, the field of metabolomics is the ideal research for observing very rapid changes in cells, as metabolites can respond to experimental interventions within seconds. This allows for entirely new insights into the human organism. Relationships between nutrition, lifestyle, and the well-being of the body can be evaluated, where diseases better understood, and disease models as well as pharmaceuticals newly developed.
Metabolomics and SICRIT
In the past, the Plasmion lab could prove that with SICRIT a metabolomic-based analysis of breath can be operated effectively, for example in a direct respiratory analysis on the effect of inhalants. During this research, high sensitivity and visibility of compounds, broad ionization capabilities of both non-polar as well as highly polar metabolites and direct analysis of complex samples were demonstrated. Compounds that could have been overlooked with conventional ionization can now be analyzed and provide new insights into novel profile groupings for biomarker discovery.
Besides breath, the analysis of lipids also could be conducted featuring the SICRIT ion source. In course of another App Note on non-polar lipids, disadvantages of the currently used methods could even be overcome: The SICRIT ionization could demonstrate consistent ionization with minimal fragmentation of non-polar lipids and identify structural patterns simply from the dominant ion species .Therefore, with SICRIT metabolomic research can be improved by simplicity, speed, and sensitivity.
As stated in the beginning, metabolomics is still a young field of study that has great potential for more development. Right now, the Plasmion lab is working on further expanding the knowledge on what the SICRIT technology can provide for metabolomic research. If you are interested in this topic and our work stay tuned, new findings will be published soon on our website.