Metabolomics is the scientific study of chemical processes involving metabolites.
Specifically, metabolomics is the “systematic study of the unique chemical fingerprints that specific cellular processes leave behind“, the study of their small-molecule metabolite profiles. The metabolome represents the collection of all metabolites in a biological cell, tissue, organ or organism, which are the end products of cellular processes. Thus, while mRNA gene expression data and proteomic analyses do not tell the whole story of what might be happening in a cell, metabolic profiling can give an instantaneous snapshot of the physiology of that cell. One of the challenges of systems biology and functional genomics is to integrate proteomic, transcriptomic, and metabolomic information to give a more complete picture of living organisms.
AOG research in metabolomics targets general function in anoxic waters, and specific function relative to the nitrogen cycle.
Our lab group is a charter member of the UW’s Microbial Metabolomics Research Center, where we use a Waters Xevo G2-S QTOF interfaced with either a Waters Acquity UPLC or
a nanoUPLC. IN addition, our lab (not part of the cost center) has a Leco GC-TOF we use for some metabolomics research.