Chapter ten - Microbial metabolomics: recent advancements and applications in infectious diseases and drug discovery

Abstract

The biochemical variety present in millions of species of plants, animals, and microbes makes nature an appealing repository of novel therapeutic candidates. Microorganisms being a prospective resource of a wide range of metabolic compounds have a significant impact on every aspect of life as they are of particular interest for natural antioxidants, immunosuppressants, enzymes, enzyme inhibitors, vitamins, antibiotics, and as treatment sources for diseases such as cancer, anemia, obesity, diabetes, atopic dermatitis, Crohn’s disease, and so on. Metabolomics has become one of the “omics” platforms used by many scientific fields that might offer a more actuation of the physiological condition of a cell by analyzing the whole collection of metabolites within a microbe and monitoring the interactions among developmental processes as well as the environment. The microbial metabolome research and analysis are now applicable only because of recent advancements in technology and informatics used to produce and analyze massive amounts of postgenomic data which have already shown an unanticipated diversity of microbial metabolites and metabolic networks. As a result, metabolomics has recently received a lot of interest due to its ability to provide metabolic information on both function and phenotype. Moreover, accurate characterization of metabolic activity may be accomplished when metabolomics is combined with other “omics” data. The emerging field of microbial metabolomics not only provides a comprehensive view of the modified pathways but also elucidates the mechanisms of the microbe–host interaction, allowing for its translational use, that is, from molecular diagnostics to druggable therapeutic developments for a variety of infectious illnesses. It aims to discover biological changes in endogenous metabolites in response to both intrinsic and extrinsic factors. The chapter briefly describes key aspects of the metabolome research and downstream resources, the problems that come with obtaining metabolomic data, and the actions that are taken to overcome them. Current analytical approaches, future trends, and certain biomedical applications of metabolomics underlying a variety of infectious illnesses are also briefly discussed in this chapter.