In the biosciences, there has been growing interest in the elucidation of gene function. Consequently, metabolomics has garnered a lot of attention of late due to its provision of metabolic information pertaining to both function and phenotype. Furthermore, when metabolomics data is integrated with other "omics" data, precise characterization of metabolic activity can be achieved. This chapter briefly introduces a few important aspects of the metabolome, the challenges faced when acquiring metabolomic information and the steps that are necessary to overcoming them. This chapter also briefly covers current analytical technologies and some microbial metabolomic applications.
Keywords: CE-MS; Data analysis; GC-MS; Human disease; LC-MS; Mass spectrometry; Metabolic quenching; Metabolite extraction; Metabolomics; Microbial; Microbial communities.