NMR-based metabolomics: Where are we now and where are we going?

The fast-growing field of metabolomics focuses on the analyses of complicated mixtures of small molecules present in biological samples. To date, metabolomics has provided a wealth of information on biological systems and impacted numerous areas of basic and life sciences. A major focus of metabolomics has been on biomedicine with the goal of biomarker discovery, drug discovery and improved mechanistic understanding of the pathogenesis of many human diseases. Analytical methods play a pivotal role in metabolomics, with the two most widely used platforms being nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy and mass spectrometry (MS). Among their many complementary capabilities, NMR is generally more reproducible and quantitative, whereas MS is more sensitive. Recent technological advances in NMR have resulted in multifaceted developments, including improvements in sensitivity, resolution and speed, along with expanded metabolite identification and quantitation, which together provide exciting potential for future studies. In addition to NMR developments, the combination of NMR with MS provides numerous benefits that are becoming more evident over time. Hence, the metabolomics field has witnessed an increased number of studies and applications that combine NMR with MS in numerous areas, including new methods development for unknown identification, metabolite quantitation, disease biomarker discovery, mechanistic understanding of disease pathogenesis, and dietary risk factors of diseases among others. This report describes the current status of state-of-the-art methods in NMR-based metabolomics, along with recent advances and future prospects, with an emphasis on the benefits of combining NMR with MS.