Department of Food Science and Nutrition, University of Minnesota, 1334 Eckles Avenue, 225 FScN, St. Paul, Minnesota, 55108, USA.
AAPS J. 2013 Oct;15(4):941-50. doi: 10.1208/s12248-013-9503-5. Epub 2013 Jun 22.
Phytochemicals from diet and herbal medicines are under intensive investigation for their potential use as chemopreventive agents to block and suppress carcinogenesis. Chemical diversity of phytochemicals, together with complex metabolic interactions between phytochemicals and biological system, can overwhelm the capacity of traditional analytical platforms, and thus pose major challenges in studying chemopreventive phytochemicals. Recent progresses in metabolomics have transformed it to become a robust systems biology tool, suitable for examining both chemical and biochemical events that contribute to the cancer prevention activities of plant preparations or their bioactive components. This review aims to discuss the technical platform of metabolomics and its existing and potential applications in chemoprevention research, including identifying bioactive phytochemicals in plant extracts, monitoring phytochemical exposure in humans, elucidating biotransformation pathways of phytochemicals, and characterizing the effects of phytochemicals on endogenous metabolism and cancer metabolism.
植物化学物质来源于饮食和草药，它们作为化学预防剂的潜力正在受到深入研究，以阻断和抑制癌变。植物化学物质的化学多样性，以及植物化学物质与生物系统之间复杂的代谢相互作用，可能会超出传统分析平台的能力，因此在研究化学预防植物化学物质方面带来了重大挑战。代谢组学的最新进展使其转变为一种强大的系统生物学工具，适合研究有助于植物制剂或其生物活性成分的癌症预防活动的化学和生化事件。本文旨在讨论代谢组学的技术平台及其在化学预防研究中的现有和潜在应用，包括鉴定植物提取物中的生物活性植物化学物质、监测人体中的植物化学物质暴露、阐明植物化学物质的生物转化途径以及表征植物化学物质对内源性代谢和癌症代谢的影响。
