Discovery of nutritional biomarkers: future directions based on omics technologies

Abstract

Understanding the interactions between food and human biology is of utmost importance to facilitate the development of more efficient nutritional interventions that might improve our wellness status and future health outcomes by reducing risk factors for non-transmittable chronic diseases, such as cardiovascular diseases, cancer, obesity and metabolic syndrome. Dissection of the molecular mechanisms that mediate the physiological effects of diets and bioactive compounds is one of the main goals of current nutritional investigation and the food industry as might lead to the discovery of novel biomarkers. It is widely recognized that the availability of robust nutritional biomarkers represents a bottleneck that delays the innovation process of the food industry. In this regard, omics sciences have opened up new avenues of research and opportunities in nutrition. Advances in mass spectrometry, nuclear magnetic resonance, next generation sequencing and microarray technologies allow massive genome, gene expression, proteomic and metabolomic profiling, obtaining a global and in-depth analysis of physiological/pathological scenarios. For this reason, omics platforms are most suitable for the discovery and characterization of novel nutritional markers that will define the nutritional status of both individuals and populations in the near future, and to identify the nutritional bioactive compounds responsible for the health outcomes.

• Diet
• genomics
• metabolomics
• nutrition
• proteomics
• transcriptomics

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to acknowledge Dr Ana Romo Hualde (Centre for Nutrition Research) for her great support and help all along the development of the project INCOMES (Guide for the Support of Health Claims in foods: Immune and Cognitive functions and Metabolic Syndrome).

Declaration of interest

All authors declare no conflict of interest concerning this supplement.

The Proteomics Core Facility at CIMA is a member of the ProteoRed-ISCIII, Carlos III Networked Proteomics Platform. This work was supported by the agreement between FIMA and the “UTE project CIMA”; grants ProteoRed-ISCIII, SAF2011-29312; Project INCOMES (Barry Callebaut-La Morella Nuts SA, Biosearch, Biotecnologías Aplicadas SA, Bodega Matarromera SL, Miguel Torres SA, Galletas Gullón SA, Iberfruta SA, Laboratorios Ordesa SL, Newbiotechnic SA and Soria Natural), co-funded by the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (Centro para el Desarrollo Tecnológico Industrial) and FEDER. Also CIBERobn and SEÑ (Spanish Society of Nutrition) are gratefully acknowledged for global support concerning the presentations of this guide.