title: Can NMR solve some significant challenges in metabolomics?
abstract: The field of metabolomics continues to witness rapid growth driven by fundamental studies, methods development, and applications in a number of disciplines that include biomedical science, plant and nutrition sciences, drug development, energy and environmental sciences, toxicology, etc. NMR spectroscopy is one of the two most widely used analytical platforms in the metabolomics field, along with mass spectrometry (MS). NMR's excellent reproducibility and quantitative accuracy, its ability to identify structures of unknown metabolites, its capacity to generate metabolite profiles using intact bio-specimens with no need for separation, and its capabilities for tracing metabolic pathways using isotope labeled substrates offer unique strengths for metabolomics applications. However, NMR's limited sensitivity and resolution continue to pose a major challenge and have restricted both the number and the quantitative accuracy of metabolites analyzed by NMR. Further, the analysis of highly complex biological samples has increased the demand for new methods with improved detection, better unknown identification, and more accurate quantitation of larger numbers of metabolites. Recent efforts have contributed significant improvements in these areas, and have thereby enhanced the pool of routinely quantifiable metabolites. Additionally, efforts focused on combining NMR and MS promise opportunities to exploit the combined strength of the two analytical platforms for direct comparison of the metabolite data, unknown identification and reliable biomarker discovery that continue to challenge the metabolomics field. This article presents our perspectives on the emerging trends in NMR-based metabolomics and NMR's continuing role in the field with an emphasis on recent and ongoing research from our laboratory.
authors.affiliation: Northwest Metabolomics Research Center, Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98109, United States.
authors.forename: G A
authors.initials: GA
authors.lastname: Nagana Gowda
authors.affiliation: Northwest Metabolomics Research Center, Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98109, United States; Department of Chemistry, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, United States; Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, WA 98109, United States. Electronic address: draftery@uw.edu.
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Raftery
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D015415:Biomarkers / Q000032:analysis; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D009682:Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy; D055432:Metabolomics / Q000379:methods*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results
chemical_list: D015415:Biomarkers
keywords: Biomarker discovery; Isotope tagging; Metabolomics; Quantitation; Unknown metabolite identification; qNMR