Chem. Pharm. Bull.(オピニオン)

During the previous decade, a new array of analytical methodologies and technologies were introduced related to the analysis of microbial, plant and animal metabolomes (complete collections of all low molecular weight compounds in a cell). The scientific field of metabolomics was born. In this review, we discuss advances in methodologies and technologies, and outline applications.

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Metabolomics: Current analytical platforms and methodologies

The discovery of a mevalonate-independent pathway for isoprenoid biosynthesis in bacteria, algae and higher plants†

Review: A review of advanced techniques for detecting plant diseases

Metabolomics is an emerging 'omics' science involving the comprehensive characterization of metabolites and metabolism in biological systems. Recent advances in metabolomics technologies are leading to a growing number of mainstream biomedical applications. In particular, metabolomics is increasingly being used to diagnose disease, understand disease mechanisms, identify novel drug targets, customize drug treatments and monitor therapeutic outcomes. This Review discusses some of the latest technological advances in metabolomics, focusing on the application of metabolomics towards uncovering the underlying causes of complex diseases (such as atherosclerosis, cancer and diabetes), the growing role of metabolomics in drug discovery and its potential effect on precision medicine.

Emerging applications of metabolomics in drug discovery and precision medicine

A comprehensive metabolomic profiling of Catharanthus roseus L. G. Don infected by 10 types of phytoplasmas was carried out using one-dimensional and two-dimensional NMR spectroscopy followed by principal component analysis (PCA), an unsupervised clustering method requiring no knowledge of the data set and used to reduce the dimensionality of multivariate data while preserving most of the variance within it. With a combination of these techniques, we were able to identify those metabolites that were present in different levels in phytoplasma-infected C. roseus leaves than in healthy ones. The infection by phytoplasma in C. roseus leaves causes an increase of metabolites related to the biosynthetic pathways of phenylpropanoids or terpenoid indole alkaloids: chlorogenic acid, loganic acid, secologanin, and vindoline. Furthermore, higher abundance of Glc, Glu, polyphenols, succinic acid, and Suc were detected in the phytoplasma-infected leaves. The PCA of the 1H-NMR signals of healthy and phytoplasma-infected C. roseus leaves shows that these metabolites are major discriminating factors to characterize the phytoplasma-infected C. roseus leaves from healthy ones. Based on the NMR and PCA analysis, it might be suggested that the biosynthetic pathway of terpenoid indole alkaloids, together with that of phenylpropanoids, is stimulated by the infection of phytoplasma.

Metabolic Discrimination of Catharanthus roseus Leaves Infected by Phytoplasma Using 1H-NMR Spectroscopy and Multivariate Data Analysis

Metabolic fingerprinting of wild type and transgenic tobacco plants by 1H NMR and multivariate analysis technique

The iridoid glucoside secologanin is derived from the novel triose phosphate/pyruvate pathway in a Catharanthus roseus cell culture

Tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) infection of tobacco is a well-known and extensively studied model system for which a number of genes and proteins involved in the systemic acquired resistance (SAR) have been characterized. Little is known about the metabolic changes connected with the infection and SAR. Here we describe the use of NMR spectroscopy in combination with multivariate data analysis to study the metabolic changes. Particularly 2-D NMR methods, such as 2-D J-resolved spectra and their projected spectra, are shown to be powerful tools in the metabolomic studies. The macroscopic view of the metabolomes obtained by NMR spectroscopy of crude extracts enabled the identification of a series of totally different metabolites that seem connected with resistance, such as the clearly increased 5-caffeoylquinic acid, α-linolenic acid analogues, and sesqui- and diterpenoids in the infected plant parts.

Alfons W.M. Lefeber

Papers

Metabolic Discrimination of Catharanthus roseus Leaves Infected by Phytoplasma Using 1H-NMR Spectroscopy and Multivariate Data Analysis

Metabolic fingerprinting of wild type and transgenic tobacco plants by 1H NMR and multivariate analysis technique

The iridoid glucoside secologanin is derived from the novel triose phosphate/pyruvate pathway in a Catharanthus roseus cell culture

NMR Metabolomics to Revisit the Tobacco Mosaic Virus Infection in Nicotiana tabacum Leaves

Identification of phenylpropanoids in methyl jasmonate treated Brassica rapa leaves using two-dimensional nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy.