Molecular basis of clinical metabolomics

Abstract

Metabolomic assays, combined with other omic technologies, such as transcriptomics and proteomics, have gained relevant importance in clinical research. Significant progress has been made in the identification of biomarkers to detect many diseases in early stages, such as inborn errors of metabolism or different types of cancer. In this way the early diagnosis could lead to adequate management of the treatments for these diseases and, possibly, to improve the prognosis and the survival of the patients. In addition, in the last few years, numerous studies of metabolomics related to nutrition were carried out. Thus the area of nutrigenomics was growing rapidly providing information about changes in the metabolome of an individual after ingesting nutrients. This could lead to the discovery of new bioprotective foods against many diseases. In this review, we emphasize the use and application of metabolomics in clinical and medical research to improve the detection, diagnosis, and treatment of different diseases.