Metabolomics in Cardiovascular Disease: Towards Clinical Application

Metabolomics were initially defined as the global analysis of all metabolites present in a sample (metabolomics) and the analysis of metabolic responses to drugs and diseases (metabonomics) [Nicholson et al., 1999, Fiehn 2002, Weckwerth and Morgenthal 2005]. These two definitions have an historical origin, while metabolomics has its foundations in microbial and plant sciences metabonomics originated in toxicology studies of mamalian systems. Today the two terms are becoming synonyms [Nicholson and Lindon 2008]. Other useful definitions have appeared in the literature [Ellis et al., 2007, Dunn et al., 2011] Table 1. In the particular setting of disease diagnosis it is relevant to talk about metabolic fingerprinting and metabonomics, both strategies aimed mainly at differentiating between two or more sets of data (i.e., disease/healthy) in a quantitative (metabonomics) or qualitative approach (fingerprinting).