title: Extending biochemical databases by metabolomic surveys.
abstract: Metabolomics can map the large metabolic diversity in species, organs, or cell types. In addition to gains in enzyme specificity, many enzymes have retained substrate and reaction promiscuity. Enzyme promiscuity and the large number of enzymes with unknown enzyme function may explain the presence of a plethora of unidentified compounds in metabolomic studies. Cataloguing the identity and differential abundance of all detectable metabolites in metabolomic repositories may detail which compounds and pathways contribute to vital biological functions. The current status in metabolic databases is reviewed concomitant with tools to map and visualize the metabolome.
authors.affiliation: University of California Davis Genome Center, Davis, California 95616, USA. ofiehn@ucdavis.edu
authors.forename: Oliver
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Fiehn
authors.forename: Dinesh K
authors.initials: DK
authors.lastname: Barupal
authors.forename: Tobias
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Kind
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D016208:Databases, Factual; D004798:Enzymes / Q000378:metabolism*; D006801:Humans; D055442:Metabolome / Q000502:physiology*; D055432:Metabolomics / Q000379:methods* / Q000639:trends
chemical_list: D004798:Enzymes