[Application of Metabolomics for High-Resolution Phenotype Analysis].

A metabolome, a total profile of metabolites, is placed downstream of a proteome. The metabolome is thought to be the result of the implementation of genomic information. In other words, the metabolome can be called a high-resolution phenotype. The easiest operation of metabolomics is integration to the upstream ome information, including the transcriptome and/or proteome. Such trials have been reported at a certain scientific level. In addition, metabolomics can be operated in stand-alone mode without any other ome information. Among methods of metabolomics, the author's group is focusing on metabolic fingerprinting, in which metabolome information is employed as an explanatory variant to evaluate the response variant. Metabolic fingerprinting techniques are expected to not only aid in analyzing slight differences depending on genotype differences, but also in clarifying dynamic variation among living organisms. The author introduces several good examples of studies which he performed. They are useful for understanding the power of metabolomics. In addition, the author discusses the latest technology for the analysis of metabolic dynamism. The author's group has developed a facile analytical method for semi-quantitative metabolic dynamism. The author introduces a novel method based on time-dependent variation in isotope distribution employing stable isotope dilution.