The human cerebrospinal fluid metabolomic database

database Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) is considered to be an excellent source of molecular biomarkers of neurological function since it is in direct contact with the extracellular space of the brain. As the CSF contains metabolites and other molecules that can reflect altered brain function, sys­ tematic studies of the CSF metabolome can potentially offer new insights into central nervous system (CNS) disorders. These include neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, amyo­ trophic lateral sclerosis and multiple sclerosis, and neuro­ psychiatric diseases such as schizophrenia, depression and bipolar disorder. At the time it was first published in 2007, the CSF metabolome database [1] contained 308 detectable metabolites, with information on names, struc­ tures, concentrations, literature references and disease associations. Since this time, the database has been applied to the study of numerous CNS diseases. Technological advances expand the spectrum of CSF metabolites A new study from David Wishart and co­workers, published in Genome Medicine, represents an important work in the field of biomarker discovery [2]. The authors describe how continuing advances in analytical tech­ nologies have led to the discovery of many new CSF metabolites, allowing expansion of the CSF metabolome database. They applied five different metabolomic plat­ forms to characterize multiple CSF samples, and this resulted in identification of new constituent metabolites and an increase in size of the database by approximately 50%. The authors now give an updated CSF metabolome database that contains detailed information of 476 compounds. Furthermore, the authors have carried out an extensive literature review for additional information on these compounds, including their concentrations and disease associations. The newly identified molecules consist of a number of metabolites (6 acylcarnitines, 13 amino acids, hexose, 42 phosphatidylcholines, 2 lyso­ phosphatidylcholines and 14 sphingolipids) that should aid neurological studies involving changes in energy metabolism. In addition, Wishart et al. also identified 37 metal ions, which could be useful in studies of neuro­ degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease, since alterations in metal ions are known to occur in this condition [3].