Abstract
Recent technological developments in metabolomics research have enabled in-depth characterization of complex metabolite mixtures in a wide range of biological, biomedical, environmental, agricultural, and nutritional research fields. Nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy and mass spectrometry are the two main platforms for performing metabolomics studies. Given their broad applicability and the systemic insight into metabolism that can be obtained it is not surprising that metabolomics becomes increasingly popular in basic biological research. In this review, we provide an overview on key metabolites, recent studies, and future opportunities for metabolomics in studying autophagy regulation. Metabolites play a pivotal role in autophagy regulation and are therefore key targets for autophagy research. Given the recent success of metabolomics, it can be expected that metabolomics approaches will contribute significantly to deciphering the complex regulatory mechanisms involved in autophagy in the near future and promote understanding of autophagy and autophagy-related diseases in living cells and organisms.
Highlights
Metabolomics is the key discipline for systemic characterization of the repertoire of small molecules and complements the other ‘omics’ such as genomics, transcriptomics, and proteomics [1, 2]
This review focuses on recent developments in the field of metabolomics with a particular emphasis on the integration of nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR) spectroscopy, mass spectrometry (MS), and data analysis methods for revealing the complex regulatory mechanisms involved in autophagy
This review focuses on metabolites involved in autophagy regulation, their investigation using metabolomics methods, applications and future opportunities of metabolomics in revealing key regulatory mechanisms in autophagy
Summary
Metabolomics is the key discipline for systemic characterization of the repertoire of small molecules (metabolites) and complements the other ‘omics’ such as genomics, transcriptomics, and proteomics [1, 2]. Nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR), and mass spectrometry (MS) are the key techniques for the detection and identification of metabolites [2, 12, 13]. Both techniques are complementary: on the one hand NMR provides access to unique structural information, is quantitative and highly reproducible, providing that guidelines for sample preparation and experimental setup are followed [14,15,16,17,18], but less sensitive [19,20,21]. The complementary nature of NMR spectroscopy and MS for metabolomic analysis has been impressively demonstrated in several studies [15, 22, 23], suggesting that the combination of both techniques is beneficial for a more comprehensive metabolite identification than applying each platform alone
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