This review discusses strategies for the identification of metabolites in complex biological mixtures, as encountered in metabolomics, which have emerged in the recent past. These include NMR database-assisted approaches for the identification of commonly known metabolites as well as novel combinations of NMR and MS analysis methods for the identification of unknown metabolites. The use of certain chemical additives to the NMR tube can permit identification of metabolites with specific physical chemical properties.
Keywords: MS of metabolite mixtures; NMR of metabolite mixtures; complex mixture analysis; metabolite databases; metabolomics; nanoparticle-assisted metabolomics; paramagnetic relaxation enhancement.