[Frontiers in Bioscience 16, 2451-2460, June 1, 2011]

Metabonomics and its role in amino acid nutrition research

Qinghua He1,2, Yulong Yin1, Feng Zhao3, Xiangfeng Kong1, Guoyao Wu1,4,5, Pingping Ren2,6

1Research Center for Healthy Breeding of Livestock and Poultry, Hunan Engineering and Research Center of Animal and Poultry Science and Key Laboratory for Agro-ecological Processes in Subtropical Region, Institute of Subtropical Agriculture, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changsha, Hunan, China 410125, 2State Key Laboratory of Magnetic Resonance and Atomic and Molecular Physics, Wuhan Institute of Physics and Mathematics, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, Hubei, China 430071, 3State Key Laboratory of Animal Nutrition, Institute of Animal Science, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing 100193, China, 4Department of Animal Science, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA 77843, 5State Key Laboratory of Animal Nutrition, China Agricultural University, Beijing, China 100193, 6Graduate University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Abstract
2. Introduction
3. Conception and workflow of metabonomics
4. Application of metabonomics to amino acid nutrition
4.1. Composition and profiles of dietary amino acids
4.2. Digestion, absorption and metabolism of amino acids in the gastrointestinal tract
4.3. Metabolic functions and signatures of amino acids
4.4. Safety and toxicity of amino acids
4.5. Individualized requirements of amino acids
5. Summary and perspective
6. Acknowledgements
7. References

1. ABSTRACT

Metabonomics combines metabolic profiling and multivariate data analysis to facilitate the high-throughput analysis of metabolites in biological samples. This technique has been developed as a powerful analytical tool and hence has found successful widespread applications in many areas of bioscience. Metabonomics has also become an important part of systems biology. As a sensitive and powerful method, metabonomics can quantitatively measure subtle dynamic perturbations of metabolic pathways in organisms due to changes in pathophysiological, nutritional, and epigenetic states. Therefore, metabonomics holds great promise to enhance our understanding of the complex relationship between amino acids and metabolism to define the roles for dietary amino acids in maintaining health and the development of disease. Such a technique also aids in the studies of functions, metabolic regulation, safety, and individualized requirements of amino acids. Here, we highlight the common workflow of metabonomics and some of the applications to amino acid nutrition research to illustrate the great potential of this exciting new frontier in bioscience.