Recent developments in sample preparation and data pre-treatment in metabonomics research.

Metabonomics is a powerful approach for biomarker discovery and an effective tool for pinpointing endpoint metabolic effects of external stimuli, such as pathogens and disease development. Due to its wide applications, metabonomics is required to deal with various biological samples of different properties. Hence sample preparation and corresponding data pre-treatment become important factors in ensuring validity of an investigation. In this review, we summarize some recent developments in metabonomics sample preparation and data-pretreatment procedures.