title: Applied metabolomics in drug discovery.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The metabolic profile is a direct signature of phenotype and biochemical activity following any perturbation. Metabolites are small molecules present in a biological system including natural products as well as drugs and their metabolism by-products depending on the biological system studied. Metabolomics can provide activity information about possible novel drugs and drug scaffolds, indicate interesting targets for drug development and suggest binding partners of compounds. Furthermore, metabolomics can be used for the discovery of novel natural products and in drug development. Metabolomics can enhance the discovery and testing of new drugs and provide insight into the on- and off-target effects of drugs.
  
  
  METHODS
  This review focuses primarily on the application of metabolomics in the discovery of active drugs from natural products and the analysis of chemical libraries and the computational analysis of metabolic networks.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Metabolomics methodology, both experimental and analytical is fast developing. At the same time, databases of compounds are ever growing with the inclusion of more molecular and spectral information. An increasing number of systems are being represented by very detailed metabolic network models. Combining these experimental and computational tools with high throughput drug testing and drug discovery techniques can provide new promising compounds and leads.
authors.affiliation: a Institute for Information and Communication Technology , National Research Council , Ottawa , Canada.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Cuperlovic-Culf
authors.affiliation: b Sussex Research Inc ., Ottawa , Canada.
authors.forename: A S
authors.initials: AS
authors.lastname: Culf
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001688:Biological Products / Q000494:pharmacology; D062313:Databases, Pharmaceutical; D015195:Drug Design; D055808:Drug Discovery / Q000379:methods*; D057166:High-Throughput Screening Assays; D006801:Humans; D055432:Metabolomics / Q000379:methods*; D058990:Molecular Targeted Therapy; D054852:Small Molecule Libraries
chemical_list: D001688:Biological Products; D054852:Small Molecule Libraries
keywords: Metabolomics; chemical libraries; drug discovery; metabolic network; metabolic profiling; metabonomics; natural products