Potential role of body fluid ¹H NMR metabonomics as a prognostic and diagnostic tool

Abstract

This review briefly handles the use of ¹H NMR spectroscopy in lipoprotein subclass analytics. Potential diagnostic uses of ¹H NMR metabonomics of human serum for coronary heart disease, diabetic nephropathy and cancer are also discussed. In addition, miscellaneous recent applications of NMR metabonomics (e.g., a pharmacometabonomic tactic to personalize drug treatment) as well as multi-organ, multispecies and multi-omics approaches to molecular systems biology are featured. Some related experimental and data analysis methodologies are briefly introduced with respect to the biochemical rationales. Critical considerations on the potential diagnostic value of in vitro¹H NMR are presented together with optimism toward the usage of body fluid ¹H NMR metabonomics in disease risk assessment and as an aid for personalized medicine.

Keywords::

• body fluid
• cancer
• coronary heart disease
• diabetes
• diagnostics
• lipoprotein subclasses
• metabolomics/metabonomics
• NMR spectroscopy
• personalized medicine
• risk assessment

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to all my colleagues and coauthors that share a scientific interest in NMR metabonomics and the multidisciplinary field of omics sciences discussed in this review. I am also indebted to Kimmo Kaski for his continuous efforts toward computational systems biology in our laboratory.

Financial & competing interests disclosure

This work has been financially supported by the Academy of Finland Centre of Excellence program for 2006–2011. The author declares that he has no competing commercial interests in this area. The author has no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.