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Metabolomics Applications in Herbal Medicine

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Toxicology of Herbal Products

Abstract

Metabolomics analytics focuses on the concomitant measuring of a vast array of small molecule metabolites in a biological sample. These approaches are heavily technique-driven, and have recently been increasingly utilized within the context of herbal medicine. Metabolomics analytics has been used to identify composition or origin of an herbal supplement, or to investigate clinical safety and efficacy responses in animals and humans following treatment with herbal products. Two main approaches − mass spectrometry preceded by either liquid or gas chromatographic separation, and nuclear magnetic resonance − are the most widely used techniques, and the development of instrumentation will be the driving force in terms of analytical accuracy when developing “end-points” or “biomarkers” for the clinical use of herbals or any other therapy.

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Abbreviations

ADME:

Absorption, distribution, metabolism, excretion

GC/TOF MS:

Gas chromatography-time of flight mass spectrometry

HPLC:

High performance liquid chromatography

MS:

Mass spectrometry

NMR:

Nuclear magnetic resonance

PLS-DA:

Partial least squares discriminant analysis

UPLC/Q-TOF MS:

Ultrahigh-performance liquid chromatography-quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry

TCM:

Traditional Chinese medicines

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Public Health and Clinical Nutrition, University of Eastern Finland, 1627, 70211, Kuopio, Finland

    Kati Hanhineva

  2. School of Pharmacy, University of Eastern Finland, 1627, 70211, Kuopio, Finland

    Markku Pasanen

Authors
  1. Kati Hanhineva
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  2. Markku Pasanen
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Kati Hanhineva .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Pharmacology & Toxicology, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland

    Olavi Pelkonen

  2. Service de Chimie Thérapeutique et de Pharmacognosie, University of Mons, Mons, Belgium

    Pierre Duez

  3. Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

    Pia Maarit Vuorela

  4. Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

    Heikki Vuorela

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Hanhineva, K., Pasanen, M. (2017). Metabolomics Applications in Herbal Medicine. In: Pelkonen, O., Duez, P., Vuorela, P., Vuorela, H. (eds) Toxicology of Herbal Products. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-43806-1_8

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