9 research outputs found
Metabolomics of aging assessed in individual parasitoid wasps
Metabolomics studies of low-biomass organisms, such as small insects, have previously relied on the pooling of biological samples to overcome detection limits, particularly using NMR. We show that the differentiation of metabolite profiles of individual 1 mg parasitoid wasps of different ages is possible when using a modified sample preparation and a combination of untargeted NMR and LC-MS based metabolomics. Changes were observed between newly emerged and older wasps in glycerolipids, amino acids and circulatory sugars. This advance in chemical profiling has important implications for the study of the behaviour and ecology of parasitoids and many other species of small organisms because predictions and observations are typically made at the level of the individual. Thus, the metabolomic state of low-biomass individuals can now be related to their behaviour and ecological performance. We discuss specifically the utility of age-related metabolomic profiling but our new approach can be applied to a wide range of biological research
Environmental Metabolomics: A Powerful Tool to Investigate Biochemical Responses to Drugs in Nontarget Organisms
Metabolomics is the analysis of endogenous and exogenous low molecular
mass metabolites within cells, tissues, or biofluids of an organism in response to
an external stressor. In this chapter, we highlight the importance of the subdiscipline
of environmental metabolomics, which investigates the interactions of organisms
with environmental stressors such as biotic and abiotic factors, xenobiotics, temperature
shifts, and chemical contaminants. Over the past decade, there has been
increasing scientific interest in environmental metabolomics, most likely attributable
to the comprehensive nature of nontargeted metabolomics. Hypotheses have therefore
been developed on complex environmental stressor effects, especially those
with unknown modes of action. The availability of a wide variety of model organisms
such as freshwater organisms of the food chain has promoted the potential of
metabolomics to detect stress from an extensive range of external factors. Furthermore,
these dynamics may shift from individuals to populations, contemplating the
traditional fields of the ecophysiology and ecology from instantaneous effects to
those over evolutionary timescales. In this chapter, we provide an overview of
analytical instrumentation, extraction methods, general experimental design, and
the statistical methods generally used in environmental metabolomics. Despite the
difficulty in understanding the consequences of environmental exposure due to interand
intra-individual variability, we believe that environmental metabolomics may
enrich our understanding of the responses of organisms to the numerous types of
environmental stressors