Metabolomics
Metabolomics is the characterization of the complete set of metabolites in a matrix of animal or vegetable origin, highlighting its variation based on the physiological, evolutionary or pathological state of the cell, tissue, organ or organism. This characterization allows to reconstruct the network of metabolic processes of the system under study. Metabolomics is finding applications in many areas, including human and animal health, biomarker discovery, drug discovery and development, plant biology, microbiology, food chemistry and environmental monitoring. Metabolomics allows a biological system to be analyzed more in depth to obtain a more detailed description of the biochemical processes and their interconnections.
NMR spectroscopy is the technique of choice for the characterization of structural aspects and for the quantification of molecules in complex mixtures, which can be carried out in a single spectrum without pre-treatment. It gives important advantages over other analytical techniques, which can be summarized in terms of ease of quantification, direct identification of metabolites and ability to determine unexpected metabolites. In fact, the NMR analysis of a sample allows the simultaneous detection of low molecular weight metabolites present in a solution at a concentration greater than 10-6 M