Dipartimento di Medicina Interna e Specialità Mediche, Reumatologia, Sapienza Università di Roma, Viale del Policlinico 155, 00161, Rome, Italy,
Curr Allergy Asthma Rep. 2014 Jun;14(6):445. doi: 10.1007/s11882-014-0445-5.
Metabolomics is the analysis of the concentration profiles of low molecular weight compounds present in biological fluids. Metabolites are nonpeptide molecules representing the end products of cellular activity. Therefore, changes in metabolite concentrations reveal the range of biochemical effects induced by a disease or its therapeutic intervention. Metabolomics has recently become feasible with the accessibility of new technologies, including mass spectrometry and high-resolution proton nuclear magnetic resonance, and has already been applied to several disorders. Indeed, it has the advantage of being a nontargeted approach for identifying potential biomarkers, which means that it does not require a preliminary knowledge of the substances to be studied. In this review, we summarize the main studies in which metabolomic approach was used in some allergic (asthma, atopic dermatitis) and rheumatic diseases (rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus) to explore the feasibility of this technique as a novel diagnostic tool in these complex disorders.
代谢组学是对生物体液中存在的低分子量化合物浓度谱的分析。代谢物是非肽类分子，代表细胞活动的终产物。因此，代谢物浓度的变化揭示了疾病或其治疗干预引起的生化效应的范围。随着新技术（包括质谱和高分辨率质子核磁共振）的应用，代谢组学最近变得可行，并且已经应用于几种疾病。事实上，它具有作为鉴定潜在生物标志物的非靶向方法的优势，这意味着它不需要对要研究的物质有初步的了解。在这篇综述中，我们总结了一些过敏（哮喘、特应性皮炎）和风湿性疾病（类风湿关节炎、系统性红斑狼疮）中使用代谢组学方法的主要研究，以探讨该技术作为这些复杂疾病的新型诊断工具的可行性。
