The metabolomics of airway diseases, including COPD, asthma and cystic fibrosis

Abstract

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), asthma and cystic fibrosis (CF) are characterized by airway obstruction and an inflammatory process. Reaching early diagnosis and discrimination of subtypes of these respiratory diseases are quite a challenging task than other chronic illnesses. Metabolomics is the study of metabolic pathways and the measurement of unique biochemical molecules generated in a living system. In the last decade, metabolomics has already proved to be useful for the characterization of several pathological conditions and offers promises as a clinical tool. In this article, we review the current state of the metabolomics of COPD, asthma and CF with a focus on the different methods and instrumentation being used for the discovery of biomarkers in research and translation into clinic as diagnostic aids for the choice of patient-specific therapies.

• Asthma
• chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
• cystic fibrosis
• mass spectrometry
• metabolomics
• NMR spectroscopy

Declaration of interest

The authors report no conflict of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of this article.