Recent advances in the application of metabolomics for food safety control and food quality analyses

Abstract

As one of the omics fields, metabolomics has unique advantages in facilitating the understanding of physiological and pathological activities in biology, physiology, pathology, and food science. In this review, based on developments in analytical chemistry tools, cheminformatics, and bioinformatics methods, we highlight the current applications of metabolomics in food safety, food authenticity and quality, and food traceability. Additionally, the combined use of metabolomics with other omics techniques for “foodomics” is comprehensively described. Finally, the latest developments and advances, practical challenges and limitations, and requirements related to the application of metabolomics are critically discussed, providing new insight into the application of metabolomics in food analysis.

Keywords:

• Food analysis
• food safety
• mass spectrometry
• metabolomics
• nuclear magnetic resonance

Disclosure statement

We declare that we do not have any commercial or associative interest that represents a conflict of interest in connection with this manuscript. We have no financial and personal relationships with other people or organizations that can inappropriately influence our work.

Additional information

Funding

This work was funded by Key projects in Guangxi (2019GXNSFDA245008), Guangxi Natural Science Foundation (2017GXNSFAA198297), the “Bagui Young Scholars” Special Project, National Key R&D Program of China, and Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (BK20181184).