Award details

Integrated metabolomic analysis of health- and nutrition-related systems

Reference	BB/C511448/1
Principal Investigator / Supervisor	Dr Nicholas Walton
Co-Investigators / Co-Supervisors	Dr Ian Colquhoun, Dr Fred Mellon, Professor Richard Mithen
Institution	Quadram Institute Bioscience
Department	Food Safety Science Division
Funding type	Research
Value (£)	200,000
Status	Completed
Type	Research Grant
Start date	01/01/2005
End date	30/09/2005
Duration	9 months

Abstract

An integrated LC/SPE/NMR/MS system is requested in order to pursue high-resolution global metabolic profiling of health- and nutrition- related biological systems, and to provide an advanced facility for the structural characterisation of unknown compounds. The new investment will permit especially two fundamental and generic categories of research problem to be tackled, viz: Metabolomics of health-related organisms and materials: Research objectives in microbes will include the analysis of metabolic fingerprints in relation to: gene-profiling and gene-expression data; environmental and stress conditions; metabolic-pathway organisation; and physiologically and industrially important aspects of microbial function and performance including antibiotic production. Relationships between the metabolome and the mathematical modelling of microbial growth will be investigated, both in pure cultures and in mixed microbial populations. In plants, work will include the characterisation of mutant collections and genetically-manipulated populations, together with studies of taxonomically-related species and cultivars, including in relation to nutritional-quality determinants and biologically-active secondary metabolites. Application to food materials will include further development of food-authentication analysis and will be devoted increasingly to correlations of the metabolome with food-functional properties as investigated by both physicochemical and sensory techniques. Nutritional metabolomics: The aim is to characterise the biotransformation pathways of dietary phytochemicals and other bio-active food components in humans and in animal and cell-culture models. The work will be carried out in conjunction with ongoing studies at the cellular level to elucidate the mechanisms of action of these compounds and to relate these mechanisms to gene function. The goals of nutritional metabolomics are to identify metabolites, including novel compounds present transiently or at low concentrations, define biotransformation relationships, and determine biotransformation and degradation kinetics. Investigations will be of three broad types: dietary intervention studies in humans (including population-based studies); experiments using compounds supplied to organ and tissue isolates and to cell cultures; and experiments to characterise the capacity and extent of biotransformation by the gut microbiota, prior to absorption. The integrated combination of high-throughput, first-pass global metabolite profiling and structure-elucidation capability is essential for this work and the plant mutant and bacterial antibiotic screening.

Summary

unavailable

Committee	Closed Committee - Agri-food (AF)
Research Topics	X – not assigned to a current Research Topic
Research Priority	X – Research Priority information not available
Research Initiative	Research Equipment Initiative 2004 (RE4) [2004]
Funding Scheme	X – not Funded via a specific Funding Scheme

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