Lessons From Large-Scale Metabolic Phenotyping

Abstract:

Centre for Metabolomics Research, Department of Biochemistry and Systems Biology, Institute of Systems, Molecular and Integrative Biology, University of Liverpool, BioSciences Building, Crown St., Liverpool, UK, L69 7ZB

Metabolomics is a growing discipline that allows the analysis of the thousands of structural different small molecules found within a biological system. These metabolites can be measured using a variety of different analytical approaches and we have developed gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and liquid chromatography mass spectrometry (LC-MS) for this purpose [1].  I shall provide an overview of metabolomics and lessons learnt from of our large-scale human serum metabolome project where we profiled 1200 healthy individuals [2]. Using these protocols we then went on to profile another ~1200 ageing individuals and identified key metabolic dysregulation which were drivers behind human frailty, which were validated in a further ~760 ageing individuals [3].

In parallel, we have been developing Raman and infrared microscopy in order to understand metabolic flux on a single cell level for bacterial community analysis.  Recent insights in metabolic flux analysis will be highlighted.