Metabolomics for the masses: The future of metabolomics in a personalized world

Abstract

Current clinical practices focus on a small number of biochemical directly related to the pathophysiology with patients and thus only describe a very limited metabolome of a patient and fail to consider the interations of these small molecules. This lack of extended information may prevent clinicians from making the best possible therapeutic interventions in sufficient time to improve patient care. Various post-genomics ‘(’omic)’ approaches have been used for therapeutic interventions previously. Metabolomics now a well-established’omics approach, has been widely adopted as a novel approach for biomarker discovery and in tandem with genomics (especially SNPs and GWAS) has the potential for providing systemic understanding of the underlying causes of pathology. In this review, we discuss the relevance of metabolomics approaches in clinical sciences and its potential for biomarker discovery which may help guide clinical interventions. Although a powerful and potentially high throughput approach for biomarker discovery at the molecular level, true translation of metabolomics into clinics is an extremely slow process. Quicker adaptation of biomarkers discovered using metabolomics can be possible with novel portable and wearable technologies aided by clever data mining, as well as deep learning and artificial intelligence; we shall also discuss this with an eye to the future of precision medicine where metabolomics can be delivered to the masses.

Serum‐plasma matched metabolomics for comprehensive characterization of benign thyroid nodule and papillary thyroid carcinoma

“…Metabolomics is simply defined as the comprehensive analysis of the metabolome of a biological system under defined conditions . Metabolome is the final downstream product of gene expression and changes in the proteome and transcriptome . It is thus, a snapshot of any biological system reflecting phenotypic changes and alterations in pathophysiological states .…”

A microbiome and metabolomic signature of phases of cutaneous healing identified by profiling sequential acute wounds of human skin: An exploratory study

“…Metabolomics is a multidisciplinary science that seeks to define the entire complement of metabolites (low molecular weight organic and inorganic chemicals) within a biological system of interest [6]. This opens up the possibilities of identifying novel biomarkers.…”

Metabolomics in the clinic: A review of the shared and unique features of untargeted metabolomics for clinical research and clinical testing

“…Thus, where statistical powering is a key consideration in research metabolomics, clinical metabolomics is a true n‐of‐1 analysis. Untargeted clinical metabolomic profiling of individual patient samples has found early application in the screening of inherited metabolic diseases, but other uses, such as probing of undiagnosed cases for disease insights, as well as health and wellness screenings, have started to emerge …”

“…Untargeted clinical metabolomic profiling of individual patient samples has found early application in the screening of inherited metabolic diseases, 26,37,64,65 but other uses, such as probing of undiagnosed cases for disease insights, as well as health and wellness screenings, have started to emerge. [66][67][68][69][70]…”