Metabolite Profiling with GC-MS and LC-MS: A key tool for contemporary biology

Abstract

Compared to the recent rapid progress in elucidating genomes, our understanding of metabolites, metabolite pathways, as well as the nature and regulation of metabolic networks is still in its infancy. This is widely misunderstood given the often authoritative nature of biological textbooks. Whilst we do have a good understanding of the pathways of primary metabolism our understanding of both secondary metabolism and the regulation of metabolic flux is poor. © 2005 Springer Science+Business Media, Inc. All rights reserved.