Originally published as JCO Early Release 10.1200/JCO.2006.09.7550 on May 14 2007

This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) Purchase Article View Shopping Cart Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a colleague Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Save to my personal folders Download to citation manager Rights & Permissions Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Claudino, W. M. Articles by Di Leo, A. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Claudino, W. M. Articles by Di Leo, A. Social Bookmarking                            What's this?

Metabolomics: Available Results, Current Research Projects in Breast Cancer, and Future Applications

Wederson Marcos Claudino, Alessandro Quattrone, Laura Biganzoli, Marta Pestrin, Ivano Bertini, Angelo Di Leo

From the Sandro Pitigliani Medical Oncology Unit, Hospital of Prato; Istituto Toscano Tumori, Prato; and the Center for Magnetic Resonance, Scientific Pole, University of Florence, Sesto Fiorentino, Florence, Italy

Address reprint requests to Angelo Di Leo, MD, PhD, Sandro Pitigliani Medical Oncology Unit, Hospital of Prato, Piazza dell'Ospedale 2, 59100 Prato, Italy; e-mail: adileo{at}usl4.toscana.it

Metabolomics is the newest "omics" science. It is a dynamic portrait of the metabolic status of living systems. Metabolomics has brought new insights on metabolic fluxes and a more comprehensive and holistic understanding of a cell's environment. This burgeoning field promises to be a potential tool to fill the gap between genotype and phenotype. As its preceding "omics" sciences (ie, genomics and proteomics), metabolomics' aim is to dredge information hidden in a sea of data. This technology permits simultaneous monitoring of many hundreds, or thousands, of macro- and small molecules, as well as functional monitoring of multiple pivotal cellular pathways. In addition, elucidation of cellular responses to molecular damage, including evolutionarily conserved inducible molecular defense systems, could be achieved with metabolomics and could lead to the discovery of new biomarkers of molecular responses to functional perturbations. If metabolomic information could be translated into diagnostic tests, it might have the potential to impact on clinical practice, and it might lead to the supplementation of traditional biomarkers of cellular integrity, cell and tissue homeostasis, and morphological alterations that result from cell damage or death. In this review the concept and characteristics of metabolomics are introduced. Main current applications of metabolomics in cancer research are reviewed, including its potential in the drug discovery field, and, last but not least, its potential impact in the field of monitoring response and toxicity to anticancer agents. In the last section, research projects ongoing at our institution and future challenges for metabolomics will be presented and briefly discussed.

published online ahead of print at www.jco.org on May 14, 2007.

Authors' disclosures of potential conflicts of interest and author contributions are found at the end of this article.

CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Facebook    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?

This article has been cited by other articles:

				I. G. Yulug and B. Gur-Dedeoglu Functional genomics in translational cancer research: focus on breast cancer Brief Funct Genomic Proteomic, March 7, 2008; (2008) eln009v1. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				M. Assfalg, I. Bertini, D. Colangiuli, C. Luchinat, H. Schafer, B. Schutz, and M. Spraul Evidence of different metabolic phenotypes in humans PNAS, February 5, 2008; 105(5): 1420 - 1424. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]