The METABOALL group consists of researchers belonging to the Metabolomics and Bioanalysis Center, CEMBIO, affiliated with the Faculty of Pharmacy of Universidad CEU San Pablo. It is an innovative group that carries out high-impact research in the field of metabolomics, requiring advanced knowledge of chromatography and related techniques, mass spectrometry, and bioinformatics.
Metabolomics is an innovative approach to studying biological situations without starting from any initial hypothesis. This omics allows for the study of specific chemical fingerprints of cellular processes, focusing on the study of metabolites generated as a consequence of metabolic activity, thus providing a snapshot of the metabolic state at the time the sample is taken. In practice, the group works with all types of biological samples and participates in numerous collaborations with other research centers and hospitals, allowing them to apply metabolomics in a wide range of health and disease situations.
To carry out the analysis of the samples, it has the metabolomics laboratory, equipped with the most modern analytical instrumentation that facilitates obtaining the characteristic metabolite profile or chemical fingerprint of each sample. Subsequently, after preprocessing and further data treatment, different statistical approaches are employed to compare study groups and identify statistically different metabolites and associate them with altered metabolic pathways. In turn, subsequent validation studies of the findings can be proposed.
The METABOALL group is a multidisciplinary group that has the capacity to address aspects such as experimental design, development and application of analytical methods, normalization, the most appropriate statistical approach for each study, as well as its biochemical interpretation. In the group, there are experts in metabolomics and lipidomics (the massive study of metabolites and lipids respectively) whose methodologies are applied in the study of the molecular mechanisms underlying different physiological situations, as well as for drug development, toxicity studies, identification of diagnostic and prognostic markers, etc.
METABOALL has the following analytical capabilities:
Consultation on the design of metabolomic and lipidomic experiments.
Preparation of all types of biological samples: biofluids (urine, serum, plasma, saliva, etc.), feces, tissues (liver, heart, adipose, kidney, brain, etc.), cells, culture media, etc.
Untargeted metabolomic and lipidomic studies in clinical, preclinical, and basic research with different analytical tools: GC-MS, CE-MS, and LC-MS.
Targeted analysis: carnitines, short-chain acids (C2-C5), amino acids, bile acids, chiral amino acid analysis, in all types of samples.
Development and validation of analytical and bioanalytical methods.
Preprocessing and data processing.
Metabolite annotation by structural elucidation based on high-resolution tandem mass spectrometry coupled to separation techniques.
Metabolic pathway analysis and biological interpretation.
Development, application, and improvement of metabolomics and lipidomics capabilities based on mass spectrometry coupled with chromatographic techniques in research on health, insulin resistance, gestational diabetes, diabetes, aging, eating disorders, neurodegenerative diseases, etc.
Improvement of untargeted metabolomic and lipidomic methodology at all stages of the study to enhance sensitivity and metabolite coverage, including sample treatment, analysis, preprocessing, deconvolution, normalization, scaling, annotation, biostatistics, study of metabolic pathways, and biochemical interpretation.
Chiral analysis of metabolites Structural elucidation for identification of unknown metabolites.
Application of metabolomics in health and disease situations.
Development of platforms for targeted metabolomics studies.
Application of metabolomics and lipidomics in the study of metabolic diseases, infectious diseases, cardiovascular and neurodegenerative diseases, cancer, diabetes, among others.