Metabolic profiling of biofluids in fish for identifying biomarkers of exposure and effects for assessing aquatic pollution

Abstract

The development of OMICs technologies has enabled the possibility of assessing a massive amount of data from the transcriptome, proteome, and/or metabolome, in response to the exposure to environmental pollutants. These technologies have allowed to radically switching from the traditional target and hypothesis-driven analysis to nontarget and discovery-driven analysis. In particular, several studies have demonstrated its power for biomarker discovery, both from laboratory to field studies. Huge advances have been achieved in the last year regarding bioinformatics tools for data processing and metabolite identification, including web services and databases. However, differences in methodological setups, particularly in liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry analysis (LC-MS/MS), standards cost, and worldwide availability still pose a challenge for metabolite identification. In this chapter, the use of metabolomics in biofluids as a nondestructive way for biomarkers discovery and its application to field studies will be researched. The revision is done under the light of own and other's experience, discussing strengths and debilities.