Emerging applications of metabolomics in food science and future trends

Weihao Wu; Lizhu Zhang; Xuan Zheng; Qihui Huang; Mohamed A Farag; Ruiyu Zhu; Chao Zhao

doi:10.1016/j.fochx.2022.100500

Emerging applications of metabolomics in food science and future trends

Food Chem X. 2022 Nov 9:16:100500. doi: 10.1016/j.fochx.2022.100500. eCollection 2022 Dec 30.

Authors

Weihao Wu¹, Lizhu Zhang¹, Xuan Zheng¹, Qihui Huang^{2

3}, Mohamed A Farag⁴, Ruiyu Zhu⁵, Chao Zhao^{2

6}

Affiliations

¹ College of Food Science, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou, China.
² College of Marine Sciences, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou, China.
³ Universidade de Vigo, Nutrition and Bromatology Group, Department of Analytical and Food Chemistry, Faculty of Sciences, 32004 Ourense, Spain.
⁴ Department of Pharmacognosy, Faculty of Pharmacy, Cairo University, Cairo 11562, Egypt.
⁵ School of Biological and Chemical Engineering, Zhejiang University of Science and Technology, Hangzhou 310023, China.
⁶ Key Laboratory of Marine Biotechnology of Fujian Province, Institute of Oceanology, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou 350002, China.

Abstract

Metabolomics is a relatively new component in systems biology that focuses on the high-throughput characterization of small molecular metabolites in biological systems. It is widely used in several scientific fields, particularly in that of food. Due to its excellent detection and prediction capacities, metabolomics well suited to analyze such complex matrix. This review emphasizes the most commonly used food metabolomics analytical technologies with a focus on novel approaches that have emerged in recent years, highlighting their suitability for food samples analysis as aided by chemometric data visualization. A comparison is presented among different metabolomics platforms and their prioritization for which metabolite classes in food. Application of metabolomics are presented in the context of food composition analysis, food quality safety, and food traceability. Furthermore, the constraints and limitations of actual metabolomics applications are explored, bringing novel insights into metabolomics use in food science to maximize its application potential in that major industrial sector.

Keywords: Analytical technologies; Food composition analysis; Food quality safety; Food traceability; Metabolomics.