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Metabolomic Fingerprinting of Blood Samples by Direct Infusion Mass Spectrometry: Application in Alzheimer’s Disease Research

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A Correction to this article was published on 01 July 2017

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Abstract

Metabolomics is largely employed in numerous biomedical research fields, such as the study of the underlying pathology of diseases, discovery of diagnostic biomarkers, or drug development. Nowadays, the main challenge is to obtain comprehensive and unbiased metabolomic profiles due to the huge complexity, heterogeneity, and dynamism of the metabolome. To this end, mass spectrometry represents a very interesting analytical platform, since the complexity of metabolome may be overcome through the use of different orthogonal separation techniques, including liquid chromatography, gas chromatography, and capillary electrophoresis. Alternatively, direct mass spectrometry analysis has been postulated as a complementary choice to hyphenated approaches. This technique exhibits several advantages such as the ability for high-throughput screening, fast analysis, and wide metabolomic coverage, since there is not exclusion of compounds due to the separation device. The present work explores the utility of metabolomics based on direct infusion mass spectrometry for analyzing blood samples. The most important analytical concerns to be considered are discussed, including sample handling, comprehensive fingerprinting, as well as subsequent identification of metabolites, and global characterization of metabolomic profiles. To conclude, a brief review on the application of these metabolomic platforms in Alzheimer’s disease research is also provided.

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(Reprinted from González-Domínguez et al. [11] with permission from Springer)

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  1. Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Experimental Sciences, University of Huelva, 21007, Huelva, Spain

    Raúl González-Domínguez

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  1. Raúl González-Domínguez
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Correspondence to Raúl González-Domínguez.

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A correction to this article is available online at https://doi.org/10.1007/s41664-017-0041-5.

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González-Domínguez, R. Metabolomic Fingerprinting of Blood Samples by Direct Infusion Mass Spectrometry: Application in Alzheimer’s Disease Research. J. Anal. Test. 1, 17 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41664-017-0018-4

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