Discovery of New Modules in Metabolic Biology Using ChemoMetabolomics

The use of small molecules to transiently modulate protein function can circumvent the limitations of classical genetic approaches caused by gene redundancy and lethality. Although chemical genomics and genetics screens facilitate the characterization of new biological components, they have infrequently led to the identification of target proteins involved in metabolism. The current state of metabolomics technologies permits the detection of thousands of molecules, allowing the exploration of yet uncharacterized metabolic pathways. The combination of these two approaches, termed here “ChemoMetabolomics”, is a promising application of both technologies. This novel approach will facilitate the detection of metabolic modulators, the dissection of the crosstalk in the metabolic network, and the development of hypotheses on how changes in metabolism affect developmental or cellular responses. Furthermore, it will facilitate the elucidation of the linkage between metabolic and developmental programs and assist the gain of an elaborated view of biological processes at the system level.