Plasma amino acid analysis for diagnosis and amino acid-based metabolic networks.
OBJECTIVE
To highlight the usefulness of amino acid profiling in clinical diagnosis and current developments in analysis revealing underlying metabolic relationships.


RESULTS
Recent innovations in metabolomics and systems biology enable high throughput measurement of diverse amino acids and the subsequent data mining for various uses. Recent studies show new possibilities of using plasma amino acid analysis as biomarker discovery tools by generating diagnostic indices through systematic computation. Such studies show that amino acid-based clinical diagnostic indices for hepatic fibrosis in type C hepatitis patients can be generated. In addition, several studies show the potential of treating amino acid profile data as a metabolomic subset, which can be integrated through the analysis of correlation with different types of 'omics' data for describing metabolite-to-metabolite or metabolite-to-gene interaction networks.


CONCLUSIONS
Amino acid profiling of biological samples could be used to generate indices that could be used for clinical diagnosis and is a useful tool for understanding metabolic implications under various physiological conditions. Although further improvements in analytical methods are needed, amino acids could be useful indicators for facilitating nutritional management of specific physiological and pathological states.
Kimura
Takeshi
T
Quality Assurance and External Scientific Affairs Department, Ajinomoto Co., Inc, Tokyo, Japan. takeshi_kimura@ajinomoto.com
Noguchi
Yasushi
Y
Shikata
Nahoko
N
Takahashi
Mitsuo
M
D000465:Algorithms; D000596:Amino Acids / Q000032:analysis / Q000097:blood*; D015415:Biomarkers / Q000097:blood; D006801:Humans; D053858:Metabolic Networks and Pathways / Q000235:genetics; D055442:Metabolome; D055432:Metabolomics / Q000379:methods*; D008954:Models, Biological; D049490:Systems Biology / Q000379:methods
D000596:Amino Acids; D015415:Biomarkers