BioFiles Volume 4, Number 8 — Metabolomics

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Table of Contents

• Introduction
• An Expanded Set of Amino Acid Analogs for the Ribosomal Translation of Unnatural Peptides
• Amino Acid Metabolites in Natural Product Biosynthesis
• Amino Acid Metabolites as Biomarkers for the Differentiation of Diseased and Healthy Cells
• Characteristic Metabolites for Inborn Errors of Amino Acid Metabolism
• Altered Amino Acid Metabolites in Aging
• Non-Labeled Amino Acid Metabolites
• Stable Isotope-Labeled Amino Acid Metabolites
• Metabolite Libraries
• New Metabolites from Sigma-Aldrich
• Drug Discovery
  • Custom Packaged Pharmacologically Active Compounds and Metabolites
  • LOPAC®1280: Library of Pharmacologically Active Compounds
• Metabolite Chromatographic Analysis
  • Ascentis® Express HILIC
  • CHROMASOLV® Solvents

Amino Acid Metabolites as Biomarkers for the Differentiation of Diseased and Healthy Cells

Changes from healthy states of biological cells to pathogenic forms and conditions can be described in terms of important high molecular weight constituents of cells like nucleic acids, proteins, lipids, glycocompounds as well as in terms of small molecular weight compounds. The search for meaningful small molecules as biomarkers in urine or blood for diseases is highly attractive due to the established world-wide track record of metabolite analysis in routine clinical chemistry analysis. The focus thereby is however restricted to a small number of metabolites for which the corresponding rapid analytical methods have been highly automated.

The development of new methodologies in metabolomics research allowing now the simultaneous analysis of a large number of metabolites opens the way for the discovery of disease-related metabolites. This identification of biomarkers in biological samples is simplified by the availability of the corresponding metabolites in pure form, as demonstrated by the increasing number of correlations between changes in metabolism and diseases states, not only in metabolic diseases but also in certain cancers like e.g. the identification of sarcosine as a biomarker for the presence and progression of prostate cancer.

Metabolic profiling experiments have been of great use to researchers in the search for small molecular weight biomarkers of diseased cells, tissues or toxicity issues, but also for the assessment of the influence of a new drug candidate on metabolic processes and its metabolic stability.

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