Cheema Amrita K, Asara John M, Wang Yiwen, Neubert Thomas A, Tolstikov Vladimir, Turck Chris W
1 Department of Oncology and 2 Department of Biochemistry, Molecular and Cellular Biology, and 3 Department of Biostatistics, Bioinformatics and Biomathematics, Georgetown University Medical Center, Washington, DC, USA; 4 Division of Signal Transduction, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and Department of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA; 5 Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, New York University School of Medicine, New York, New York, USA; 6 Berg, New York, New York, USA; and 7 Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry, Munich, Germany.
J Biomol Tech. 2015 Sep;26(3):83-9. doi: 10.7171/jbt.15-2603-001.
Metabolomics is an emerging field that involves qualitative and quantitative measurements of small molecule metabolites in a biological system. These measurements can be useful for developing biomarkers for diagnosis, prognosis, or predicting response to therapy. Currently, a wide variety of metabolomics approaches, including nontargeted and targeted profiling, are used across laboratories on a routine basis. A diverse set of analytical platforms, such as NMR, gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, Orbitrap mass spectrometry, and time-of-flight-mass spectrometry, which use various chromatographic and ionization techniques, are used for resolution, detection, identification, and quantitation of metabolites from various biological matrices. However, few attempts have been made to standardize experimental methodologies or comparative analyses across different laboratories. The Metabolomics Research Group of the Association of Biomolecular Resource Facilities organized a "round-robin" experiment type of interlaboratory study, wherein human plasma samples were spiked with different amounts of metabolite standards in 2 groups of biologic samples (A and B). The goal was a study that resembles a typical metabolomics analysis. Here, we report our efforts and discuss challenges that create bottlenecks for the field. Finally, we discuss benchmarks that could be used by laboratories to compare their methodologies.
代谢组学是一个新兴领域，涉及对生物系统中小分子代谢物进行定性和定量测量。这些测量对于开发用于诊断、预后或预测治疗反应的生物标志物可能有用。目前，包括非靶向和靶向分析在内的多种代谢组学方法在各实验室中被常规使用。一系列不同的分析平台，如核磁共振、气相色谱 - 质谱联用、轨道阱质谱和飞行时间质谱，它们使用各种色谱和电离技术，用于从各种生物基质中解析、检测、鉴定和定量代谢物。然而，很少有人尝试对不同实验室的实验方法或比较分析进行标准化。生物分子资源设施协会的代谢组学研究小组组织了一种“循环”实验类型的实验室间研究，其中在两组生物样品（A组和B组）中向人血浆样品添加不同量的代谢物标准品。目标是进行一项类似于典型代谢组学分析的研究。在此，我们报告我们的工作并讨论给该领域造成瓶颈的挑战。最后，我们讨论各实验室可用于比较其方法的基准。
