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Characterizing Alzheimer's disease through metabolomics and investigating anti‐Alzheimer's disease effects of natural products
Author(s) -
Yi Lunzhao,
Liu Wenbin,
Wang Zhe,
Ren Dabing,
Peng Weijun
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
annals of the new york academy of sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.712
H-Index - 248
eISSN - 1749-6632
pISSN - 0077-8923
DOI - 10.1111/nyas.13385
Subject(s) - metabolomics , disease , identification (biology) , dementia , biomarker , alzheimer's disease , bioinformatics , medicine , neuroscience , computational biology , biology , pathology , genetics , botany
Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common cause of dementia in elderly people and is among the greatest healthcare challenges of the 21st century. However, the etiology and pathogenesis of AD remain poorly understood, and no curative treatments are available to slow down or stop the degenerative effects of AD. As a high‐throughput approach, metabolomics is gaining significant attention in AD research, because it has a powerful potential to discover novel biomarkers, unravel new therapeutic targets for AD, and identify perturbed metabolic pathways involved in AD progression. Here, we systematically review metabolomics with regard to its recent advances and applications in the identification of potential biomarkers for early AD diagnosis and pathogenesis research. In addition, we illustrate the developments in metabolomics as an effective tool for understanding the anti‐AD mechanisms of natural products. We believe that the insights from these advances can narrow the gap between metabolomics research and clinical applications of laboratory findings. Moreover, we discuss some limitations and perspectives of biomarker identification in metabolomics.