week 5 part 1 Flashcards
Define metabolomics
systemic identification and quantification of the small molecule metabolic products (the metabolome of a biological system(cell, tissue, organ, biological fluid or organism) at a specific point in time
What are metabolites?
small (<1000 atomic mass unit (amu x10-24g) chemical compounds (<1000 atomic mass unit
Define metabolism
Ensemble of chemical transformation carried out in the living tissue
What is netabolomics essentially extension of?
proteomics to the activities of expressed enzymes
Define metabonomics
subset of metabolomics involving the quantitative measurement of the multi-parametric metabolic responses of living systems to pathophysiological stimuli or genetic modifications
What are metabolites seen to be?
Most revealing markers of disease or chronic expsoure to toxins from the environment and of the effect of drugs
What are metabonomics a subset of ?
Investigation of the absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion (ADME) OF DRUGS
What does metabonomics include?
not only intracellular molecules but also the components of extracellular biofluids
What does metabonomics deal with?
A diverse set of metabolites even more varied than proteins
Why is metabolomics not a new idea?
- Ancient physicians tasted patient’s urine for sweetness to test for diabetes
- Urine charts were for diagnosis in middle ages
- Blood lactate is a diagnostic and prognostic tool for newborns with perinatal asphyxia
What is used to measure the degree of lactic acidosis?
- lactate and not base deficit
What did the study examine?
The relation between blood gas measurements and outcome following perinatal asphyxia (pre-term infants)
What can urine lactate be?
Novel biomarker of lactate production capacity but reliability has been unsatisfactory so far
What can metabolomics provide?
- unbiased approach to assess a process without prior assumption
What are metabolites?
- end products of all processes occurring in cells, including gene, transcription and protein function
- provide a snapshot of biological status
what causes substantial changes in metabolites levels?
- subtle changes in gene, transcripts and protein
What is used to analyse blood metabolites?
NMR spectroscopy
What is example of endogenous metabolite?
normal cellular function
What is example of Exogenous metabolites?
- Diet
2. Gut flora
how many known metabolites are there?
- 200,000
How are compounds identified?
comparison with known standards within library (National institute of standards and Technology)
How long does it take a laboratory to identify one metabolite
A day by looking at 500 spectra per day
What can recent algorithms do?
Sift through 1000x times more
What is mass spectrometer?
Instrument which can measure the masses and relative concentrations of atoms and molecules