Metabolomics

As one of the key disciplines of systems biology, metabolomics investigates the composition (identification and quantification of metabolites) as well as the dynamics (metabolic rates and fluxes) of the metabolome in relation to genetic and environmental conditions or perturbations. In analogy to the genome or proteome, the metabolome comprises all endogenous biochemicals apart from proteins and nucleic acids, i.e. the small molecular compounds linked to the central metabolism, secondary metabolites, lipids or oligosaccharides. Thus, metabolomics complements the functional genomics approach by a systematic analysis of the biochemical phenotype as it emerges from the genotype, a given environment and the molecular interactions of an organism. Because many emergent properties of the complex biomolecular interaction networks of organisms are traceable only on the metabolome level, metabolomics is not a redundant or confirmatory but an essential complement of systems oriented genome and proteome analyses.

However, due to analytical limitations metabolomic analyses currently cannot cover the entire metabolome with one analytical approach. Therefore, metabolomics analyses are always focused on a part of a given metabolome, e.g. the small polar molecules or the lipids extracted from a biological sample. This, currently inevitable focus is the reason for the rather independently evolving disciplines of "small polar molecules" metabolomics, lipidomics, glycomics and other metabolome related approaches.

Currently the FGCZ is establishing support for the untargeted, mass spectrometry based analysis (i.e. profiling) of small polar molecules and lipids. The support includes all steps of the metabolomics workflow, comprising sampling, sample preparation, sample fractionation, mass spectrometry and data analysis. Other protocols, e.g. for fluxomics, for NMR based metabolomics or metabonomics, will be made available on request.

Although similar in many analytical aspects, the analysis of exogenous metabolites, i.e. xenobiotics (e.g. drugs) and their degradation products or the identification of new secondary metabolites or the chemotaxonomic profiling of organisms do not share the systems scope with metabolomics and has to be considered as approaches in their own right. Nevertheless, the FGCZ will provide analytical support also in these fields if the available technology fits the project needs (go to the subsection Exact Mass Measurement for more information and an example).