Chromatography Techniques and Spectrometry

Mass Spectrometry for Metabolomics

The study of the metabolism of living organisms in a wide range of conditions, including health and disease can be studied under the field of metabolomics. Muclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) and mass spectrometry (MS) are the two main analytical techniques used for metabolomics which allow for the detection of many different metabolites. Precise quantitation and superior compound identification are the major strengths of NMR; however, its low sensitivity (metabolites must exceed 1µM) is a major weakness of the method.

In the range of femtomolar to attomolar MS can typically detect. MS can routinely analyze hundreds of compounds in a single sample and run, making it a very powerful and high-throughput process Coupled to either gas chromatography (GC), ion chromatography (IC) or liquid chromatography (LC). Metabolite identification has improved significantly with the advancement of high resolution accurate mass (HRAM) MS systems, as well as enhanced metabolite databases/libraries.To complement genomics and proteomics (multiomics) as core technologies in academic and industrial research labs Innovations, MS have also enabled metabolomics to emerge as its own field of study.