Authors
Rida Tabassum, Supraja OD, Harshitha J Y, Nithyashree S, Dr. Prashanth Kumar HP
Abstract
The domain of "omics" is about the metabolite (small molecule) analysis within the living cells, tissues or organisms is called as Metabolomics. These metabolites are still able to interact with biological system and such interaction is understood as Metabolome. The product of metabolism are affected by genes and environmental factors. Metabolomics best represents the molecular phenotype. This field studies small molecules at the range of 50-1500 Da. It is evaluated that, in plants there are approximately 200,000 metabolites while in humans it is evaluated that there are 3,000 common metabolites. These evaluations are approximates since it is laborious to work out the low-abundance molecules. Overall, it provides, valuable information about what causes changes in our health. Metabolomics plays an important role in forensic toxicology, since it provides an in-depth analysis of altered metabolic pathways that are targeted by harmful chemicals. One such chemical is discussed here is methanol toxicity. Methanol is an extremely weak base and it exists in all life forms starting from bacteria to humans. The metabolites of methanol such as, formic acid and formaldehyde are responsible for toxicity, rather than methanol itself. It is potentially toxic when the concentration is more than 340 mg/L. The blood methanol concentration in sober condition is around 3mgL-1, which is 400-1000x < lethal concentration. Metabolomics plays a vital role in identifying these metabolites through a number of the methods of detection which includes, NMR, GC-MS, HPLC, etc. The methanol toxicity shows visible signs during a postmortem. Thus, metabolomics is involved in toxicology testing, drug compliance, genetic disorder tests, drug phenotyping and eventually, it also facilitates the understanding of direct cellular phenotypes that are induced by the toxic chemicals such as methanol, arsenic, cyanide, etc. Keywords: Omics, Metabolomics, Metabolites, Methanol Toxicity, Postmortem Appearances.
Introduction
Methanol intoxication is caused by accidental or purposeful ingestion. According to a nationwide study conducted in 2018 regarding subsequent mortality due to methanol toxicity around 1999 - 2013, it was estimated that the probability of survival rate decreased as the time increased. The survival rate was high during the first few months and when the condition prolonged, the survival rate started to fall below 50%. Methanol toxicity in the postmortem process is detected using "metabolomics" (Chung et al., 2018).
Overview on Metabolomics
Metabolomics is a field which concentrates on metabolites that are produced from the metabolic activity in a living organism. It is useful to study about the metabolites when it is combined with high-throughput analytical chemistry. Generally, viruses are preferred to study the steps of metabolism since they can utilize and recourse to the host's metabolic pathway. All small molecules that are produced after metabolism in a cell is defined as "metabolome". Metabolomics represents the molecular phenotype (Manchester and Anand, 2017).
Process of Metabolomic Study
The analysis of data can be approached by two methods:
• Targeted Approach: In this approach, a specific metabolite is analyzed. This approach is helpful in pharmacokinetics and the activity of modified enzymes.
• Untargeted Approach: In this approach, many metabolites are analysed from different biological samples. It is also called as global approach (Salek et al., 2020).
Both the above mentioned approach follow the same procedures. The process that is discussed further is mass spectroscopy based, however, an untargeted approach can also be performed using NMR. This approach is useful to reveal new association between disease and metabolite and also allows to understand more about metabolic pathways and functions (Roberts et al., 2012).
References
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How to cite this article?
| APA Style | Tabassum, R. et al. (2021). Metabolomics in Methanol Toxicity. Academic Journal of Forensic Sciences, 04(01), 21–27. |
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