Review of the recent developments in metabolomics-based phytochemical research

Abstract

Phytochemicals are important bioactive components present in natural products. Although the health benefits of many food products are well-known and accepted as a common knowledge, the identity of the main bioactive molecules and the mechanism by which they interact in the body of human are often unknown. It was only in the last 30 years when the field of metabolomics had matured that the identification of such molecules with bioactivity has been made possible through the development of instruments to separate and computational techniques to characterize complex samples. This in turn has enabled in vitro studies to quantify the biological activity of the respective phytochemical either in mice models or in humans. In this review, the importance of key dietary phytochemicals such as phenolic acids, flavonoids, carotenoids, resveratrol, curcumin, and capsaicinoids are discussed together with their potential functions for human health. Untargeted metabolomics, in particular, liquid chromatography mass spectrometry, is the most used method to isolate, identify and profile bioactive compounds in the study of phytochemicals in foods. The application of metabolomics in drug discovery is a common practice nowadays and has boosted the drug and/or supplement manufacturing sector.

Highlights

• Phytochemicals are beneficial compounds for human health

• Phytochemicals are plant-based bioactive and obtainable from natural products

• Untargeted metabolomics has boosted the discovery of phytochemicals from food

• Targeted metabolomics is key in the authentication and screening of phytochemicals

• Metabolomics of phytochemicals is reshaping the road to drug and supplement manufacture

Keywords:

• Metabonomics
• natural product
• food chemistry
• authentication
• drug discovery

Disclosure statement

The authors have no conflict of interest to declare.

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.