Metabolomics in pediatric nephrology: emerging concepts

Abstract

Metabolomics, the latest of the “omics” sciences, refers to the systematic study of metabolites and their changes in biological samples due to physiological stimuli and/or genetic modification. Because metabolites represent the downstream expression of genome, transcriptome and proteome, they can closely reflect the phenotype of an organism at a specific time. As an emerging field in analytical biochemistry; metabolomics has the potential to play a major role for monitoring real-time kidney function and detecting adverse renal events. Additionally, small molecule metabolites can provide mechanistic insights for novel biomarkers of kidney diseases, given the limitations of the current traditional markers. The clinical utility of metabolomics in the field of pediatric nephrology includes biomarker discovery, defining as yet unrecognized biologic therapeutic targets, linking of metabolites to relevant standard indices and clinical outcomes, and providing a window of opportunity to investigate the intricacies of environment/genetic interplay in specific disease states.

Preterm neonatal urinary renal developmental and acute kidney injury metabolomic profiling: an exploratory study

“…Urine metabolomics have been used to document changes across developmental age; yet there is so much more to uncover. Metabolomics applications could be employed to evaluate the differences across neonatal developmental stages, the impact of AKI on different metabolomics pathways, the environmental exposures that lead to poor development and kidney injury, the nutritional demands of the growing premature infants, and to uncover urine biomarkers of many diseases[9]. All of these could improve the outcomes and understanding of the target pathways for certain diseases [8].…”

Metabolomics and renal disease

“…This article provides an update on publications within the last ~18 months that illustrate these points, reviewing both clinical and experimental renal metabolomics studies as well as select non-metabolomics studies that are of interest to the field. With the goal of providing a coherent synthesis primarily anchored around adult CKD, metabolomics studies of renal transplantation [5, 6], renal cell carcinoma [7], and pediatric nephrology [8] are not discussed.…”

Insights into the Chemical Biology of Childhood Embryonal Solid Tumors by NMR-Based Metabolomics

“…Metabolomics is the measurement of the amount (concentration) of the complete set of metabolites with molecular masses lower than 2500 Da, such as amino acids and peptides (small oligopeptides), organic acids, then, lipids (fatty acids and derivatives), vitamins, among others. Metabolic fingerprints of an organism, fluid, tissue, or cell are a sum of overall effects, such as pathological conditions, genetic variations, and external stimuli ( Figure 1) [2,3]. On the other hand, metabonomics is just a part of the metabolomics, and a quantitative measurement of differences in metabolites observed from the comparison among samples from at least two groups (one is control group) [4].…”

“…In cancer, different studies (for a complete listing of metabolomics approaches see the review papers by Gowda et al, and Fuss and Chen) [10,11] have revealed the potential role of metabolomics in broadening the understanding of pathophysiological processes, such as characterization of primary and metastatic tumors, and identification of predictive biomarkers for therapeutic responses; monitoring real-time cancer biological activities, which might help diagnosis; evaluating the detailed metabolic impact of the anticancer agents (particularly metal complexes) on the cells to obtain information regarding drug mechanisms and triggered cellular adaptations, thus potentially providing information on cellular resistance or positive response; characterizing chemical composition of biofluids, cell, or tissue extract [3]. For example, in studies of intact tissues such as biopsy material or tumor cells, high-resolution magic angle spinning (HR-MAS) NMR can be used to obtain complete biochemical information with minimum sample preparation requirements.…”