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 Canadian scientists release first draft of human metabolome
February 2007
SHARING OPTIONS:
EDMONTON, Alberta—Nearly three years in the making and $7.5
million later, researchers at the University of Alberta here emerged from their
NMR and mass spectrometry laboratories to unveil the completion of the first
draft of the human metabolome. The Human Metabolome Project cataloged and
characterized,500 metabolites, 1,200 drugs and 3,500 food components with the
expectation that this information source will have a more immediate impact than
the did the release of the complete human genome.
“This is not just a list of compounds and structures,” says
David Wishart, project leader for The Human Metabolome Project. “It contains
information about the genes and the proteins and compounds they act on, so it
provides that critical link of the metabolome to the genome which is a
significant development.”
Near term, the central database is expected to save
metabolomic researchers time, as previously they would need to search the
published literature for information on metabolites. Often, bits of information
on the same metabolite could be found in publications that occurred 20 or more
years apart.
“The community was rather disconnected and disjointed and
some of that comes from not having a consolidated resource,” says Wishart.
The database has been released in dribs and drabs over the
past couple of years, and the latest release of the human metabolome database
(found at hmdb.ca) was the culminating event. Only one of three separate
components, HMDB is complemented by the food and drug databases FooDB
(foodb.ca) and DrugBank (drugbank.ca).
Wishart says DrugBank, released last
year was “a surprise hit” among pharma researchers since it tied the drugs to
target proteins.
Most likely future uses of the data would be to create
diagnostic tools, he says, pointing out that today’s diagnostic tests
based on measuring metabolites in blood or urine samples look for less than
one percent of know metabolites.
Better diagnostics for a wider range of metabolites
should also be of interest to pharmaceutical companies while they conduct clinical trials. “Compliance is a big issue in clinical trails. So, if
people are following the regimen and don’t improve, these new tests could
potentially identify the ones that aren’t taking the drug or who also may be
fast metabolizers. These are the things that are possible using this
information.” Code: E020716 Back  |
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