Journal of Drug Metabolism & Toxicology
Open Access

Abstract

Potential Applications and Development of Cell Metabolomics in Natural Products

Ai-Hua Zhang, Hui Sun and Xi-jun Wang

Natural products play a vital role in drug discovery. Metabolomics, the systematic analysis of small molecular metabolites in biological systems, has been increasingly applied to discovering biomarkers, identifying perturbed pathways and discovering new drugs. It enables the examination and identification of endogenous biochemical reaction products occurring within a living cell. Cell metabolomics has many potential applications and advantages to currently used methods at various aspects in the natural product era. This review covers recent developments in the use of metabolomics to characterize cellular metabolome and interpret them in terms of metabolic changes taking place in a wide range of situations, especially, highlights the key roles of the endogenous small-molecule metabolites in the natural product field.