Analytical techniques in metabolomics [Chapter 2]
Abstract
Recent advances in metabolomics-based approaches using liquid or gas chromatography coupled to high-resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS) offer exciting perspectives to detect and identify simultaneously biomarkers of effect (i.e., disruption of endogenous metabolite profiles) and exposure (relevant xenobiotic mixtures and/or emerging compounds) accumulating in environmental and/or biological samples. Great efforts are currently being made to improve the steps of detection and identification as well as the treatment of data generated to obtain biological information. However, other steps in the general workflow on metabolomics analysis have not received the same attention. These steps fall within the concept of sample preparation and chromatographic separation, which continues to be the bottleneck in the development of analytical methods. This chapter will discuss modern separation and identification methods, with a major focus on HRMS and complementary separation techniques together with the current state of the art for sample preparation for metabolomics.