Abstract
In the natural environment, interactions between species are a common natural phenomena. The mechanisms of interaction between different species are mainly studied using genomic, transcriptomic, proteomic, and metabolomic techniques. Metabolomics is a crucial part of system biology and is based on precision instrument analysis. In the last decade, the emerging field of metabolomics has received extensive attention. Metabolomics not only provides a qualitative and quantitative method for studying the mechanisms of interactions between different species, but also helps clarify the mechanisms of defense between the host and pathogen, and to explore new metabolites with various biological activities. This review focuses on the methods and progress of interspecies metabolomics. Additionally, the prospects and challenges of interspecies metabolomics are discussed.
Highlights
Metabolites are the core of the interrelation between cell changes and phenotypes, which directly reflect the physiological state of cells [1,2]
The advances in chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry have allowed scanning almost all polar and semi-polar metabolites of low molecular weight in an organism at once [6], such as gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC-MS), liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS), and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), which are the most commonly used methods
mass spectrometry imaging (MSI) is mainly classified according to the ionization mode, which currently mainly includes the following three types: Secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS), which needs to be conducted in vacuum conditions [29], matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization (MALDI) [30], and desorption electrospray ionization (DESI) [31,32]
Summary
Metabolites are the core of the interrelation between cell changes and phenotypes, which directly reflect the physiological state of cells [1,2]. The advances in chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry have allowed scanning almost all polar and semi-polar metabolites of low molecular weight (typically 50~1000 Da) in an organism at once [6], such as gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC-MS), liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS), and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), which are the most commonly used methods. These metabolomics methods have developed rapidly over the past decade, playing a crucial role in analyzing metabolic pathways, identifying microbial types, researching gene functions and transcriptome and proteome associations, and providing new methods and ideas for research.
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