Dear Colleagues,

The Metabolomics Society has noted that the study of metabolism at the global or ‘omics’ level is a rapidly growing field that can profoundly impact medical practice. Today, doctors use only a tiny fraction of the information in the metabolome. While they usually measure only a narrow subset of substances in the blood to assess health and disease, the published research data show that the metabolome of biosamples is a collection of highly informative and accurate signatures associated with all socially significant diseases. The Metabolomics Society has declared that “the narrow range of chemical analyses in current use by the medical community today will be replaced in the future by analyses that reveal a far more comprehensive metabolic signatures”. Although such personalized metabolomics have great potential for use in clinics, it is not implemented in clinics. There is still a need for analytical methods to address quality control, standardization, data treatment, etc. The complexity of personal metabolomics data analysis and interpreting the results for end-users are well known. New problem-solving approaches may radically change the situation and realize the analytical capabilities of metabolomics in medical laboratory practice. The aim of this Special Issue is to advance this field by providing a forum for the presentation of studies that highlight the use of metabolomics in a personalized way. Specific areas include, but not are limited to, the statistics, bioinformatics, and analytical methods for personalized metabolomics studies; the identification of separate disease biomarkers or signatures; the biomarkers of exposure; standardization and quality control; data integration across studies and laboratory platforms; the use of dried blood spot (DBS); the implementation of personalized metabolomics as laboratory-development tests; and personal data collection in databases. Critical opinions, communications, reviews, and perspectives are also welcomed.

Prof. Dr. Petr G. Lokhov
Guest Editor

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• metabolomics
• personalized metabolomics
• mass spectrometry
• laboratory-developed test
• mass spectrometry
• blood
• dried blood spot
• diagnostics
• disease risk assessment
• metabolite set enrichment analysis
• metabolomics data treatment

Safe-DBS Technique: Safe Blood Sampling, Transport, and Processing in a Pandemic Era

Steven Lichtenberg, et al.

Institute of Biomedical Chemistry, 10 Building 8, Pogodinskaya Street, 119121 Moscow, Russia;

Metabometrics Inc., 651 N Broad Street, Suite 205 #1370, Middletown, DE 19709, USA; [email protected]

Abstract: The blood collection in the form of Dried Blood Spot (DBS) is well-known and widely used in the laboratory practice as a safe and more convenient alternative to venous blood sampling. In the era of the pandemic, such approaches become more relevant and come to the fore. The use of DBS for the analysis of blood metabolites is also well-known and many DBS techniques are already in use. However, it is common to all of them that the blood spot remains a contagious carrier. The scale of this problem and the risks of infection from DBS were assessed in this work. A solution, called Safe-DBS for measuring both individual low molecular weight substances and blood metabolome, was proposed. A distinctive feature of the Safe-DBS is that the blood spot contains only a low molecular weight fraction of blood and completely excludes the presence of higher molecular weight dangerous agents, including any viruses. The prospects for the widespread use of the Safe-DBS in metabolomic studies, arising from the simplifying the storage and transportation of blood samples, as well as the possibility of analyzing the Safe-DBS samples in laboratories that do not have permission to work with blood, are discussed. The latter is considered as an essential factor in facilitating personalized metabolomics.

Article

Clinical Blood Metabogram: Effects of Gender, Age, Diet, Genome, and Gut Microbiome

Petr G. Lokhov, et al.

Institute of Biomedical Chemistry, Moscow, Russia

Abstract: In previous work, the concept of a mass spectrometric blood metabologram was presented, which allows for the analysis of personal blood metabolome data in time, cost, and reproducibility acceptable for clinical laboratory tests (Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2023, 24(2), 1736). It has been established that the components of the metabogram are functionally related groups of the blood metabolome associated with regulation, lipid-carbohydrate and lipid-amine blood components, eicosanoids, lipid intake into the organism, and liver function, thereby providing a lot of clinically relevant information. As a result, the metabogram enables the application of metabolomics performance in the clinic. Due to the fact that the blood metabolome is strongly affected by gender, age, diet, the gut microbiome, and the genome, their influence on the components of the metabogram was studied in this work. Metabograms of blood plasma were obtained by direct infusion mass spectrometry, the genome was investigated using the Illumina Infinium Global Screening Arrays, and the gut microbiome was determined by inoculation of selective culture media and by polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Diet was taken into account through the total energy value of the diet and the total amount of protein, fat, and carbohydrates consumed. The study involved healthy volunteers and individuals with varying degrees of metabolic disorders (20 healthy individuals, 20 overweight individuals, and 60 individuals with stage 1, 2, or 3 obesity). The obtained results showed that a blood metabogram can be carried out correctly, taking into account the factors influencing it, which makes it possible to accurately detect deviations in the low-molecular-weight composition of blood and implement personalized metabolomics to precisely estimate the health status of individuals.