NMR-Based Plant Metabolomics in Nutraceutical Research: An Overview

Abstract

Few topics are able to channel the interest of researchers, the public, and industries, like nutraceuticals. The ever-increasing demand of new compounds or new sources of known active compounds, along with the need of a better knowledge about their effectiveness, mode of action, safety, etc., led to a significant effort towards the development of analytical approaches able to answer the many questions related to this topic. Therefore, the application of cutting edges approaches to this area has been observed. Among these approaches, metabolomics is a key player. Herewith, the applications of NMR-based metabolomics to nutraceutical research are discussed: after a brief overview of the analytical workflow, the use of NMR-based metabolomics to the search for new compounds or new sources of known nutraceuticals are reviewed. Then, possible applications for quality control and nutraceutical optimization are suggested. Finally, the use of NMR-based metabolomics to study the impact of nutraceuticals on human metabolism is discussed.

Keywords: NMR; metabolomics; nutraceuticals.

Figure 1

Pipeline of an NMR-based metabolomics experiment: in order to obtain results that are biologically and statistically significant a well-designed experimental approach is needed. This encompasses all the stages from sampling through data acquisition to data analysis (Figure created with mind the graph platform).

Figure 2

Increasing trend in nutraceutical publications obtained using the keywords “nutraceutical” and “metabolomics” from Scopus (https://www.scopus.com). At submission, the document count for 2020 is 84.