Novel biological insights through metabolomics and 13C-flux analysis

Metabolomics and 13C-flux analysis have become instrumental for analyzing cellular metabolism and its regulation. Driven primarily by technical advances in mass spectrometry-based analytics, they provide unmatched readouts on metabolic state and activity. Functional genomics leverages metabolomics for the discovery of novel enzymes and unexpected secondary activities of annotated enzymes. 13C-flux analyses are frequently used for empirical elucidation of pathways in poorly characterized species and for network-wide analysis of mechanisms that realize energy and redox balancing. Integration of metabolomics, 13C-flux analysis and other data enable the condition-dependent characterization of regulatory circuits that ultimately govern the metabolic phenotype.