Metabolomics in Forensic Toxicology and Forensic Medicine

Michal Ciborowski^*
*Correspondence: Michal Ciborowski, Department of Forensic Medicine, Medical University of Bialystok, 15-269 Bialystok, Poland, Email:

Introduction

Forensic toxicology and forensic medicine are distinct from other medical fields in that they have a significant legal impact, particularly in civil and criminal cases. New high-throughput technologies derived from chemistry and physics have demonstrated that metabolomics, the most recent of the "omics sciences,"could be one of the most powerful tools for monitoring changes in forensic disciplines. Metabolomics is a method for measuring metabolic changes in a multicellular system using two different approaches: targeted and untargeted. Targeted studies concentrate on a specific set of metabolites. Untargeted metabolomics seeks to identify all metabolites in a sample. In both cases, different statistical approaches can be used to extract useful and important information. The purpose of this review is to describe the role of metabolomics in forensic toxicology and medicine.

Description

The cellular regulatory processes and their levels can be viewed as biological systems' ultimate response to genetic or environmental changes." In addition to this concept, he stated, "In parallel to the terms 'transcriptome' and 'proteome,' the set of metabolites synthesised by a biological system constitutes its'metabolome."The quantitative examination of all the metabolites of an organism or a specific biological sample. Metabolomics has evolved significantly in recent years, and it is now defined as the study of metabolites using advanced high throughput analytical approaches and bioinformatics. Metabolomics tracks changes in small molecules that occur in organisms in response to a specific stimulus. Unlike the other "omics sciences," metabolomics can connect gene and environmental interactions.

Although it is still in its early stages in forensics, the metabolomics approach is already regarded as a useful tool for a variety of legal issues. Metabolomics techniques can also be used to identify novel biomarkers with superior diagnostic performance to those already in use, as well as to estimate mortality risk in global disease. Metabolomics and computational biology techniques were also used to develop a quantitative forecast model for early warning of sudden death. Analyses of metabolic pathways, on the other hand, may be successfully used to investigate consumption behaviour, differentiate between acute and chronic drug use, or identify the underlying mode of toxicological action in humans.

Metabolomics analysis can be carried out in a variety of ways. Metabolic fingerprinting is the most comprehensive, aiming to measure all metabolites present in the studied sample. In reality, none of the currently available analytical techniques can detect all of the metabolites in a biological sample. To increase metabolome coverage, a combination of several techniques to analyse the same sample is required. Metabolic fingerprinting, also known as untargeted metabolomics analysis, can be carried out by combining nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) or mass spectrometry with one of three separation techniques: liquid chromatography, gas chromatography, or capillary electrophoresis. NMR has lower sensitivity but higher reproducibility than MS. Furthermore, because NMR is inherently quantitative and nondestructive to the sample, it requires minimal sample preparation.

Different classes of metabolites are detected depending on the separation technique hyphenated to MS. GC-MS can be used to measure volatile metabolites or metabolites with the potential to become volatile. CE-MS is effective for detecting polar and ionogenic metabolites. Simultaneously, depending on the type of chromatography used, LC-MS can be used to measure both polar and non-polar metabolites. In the case of untargeted studies, high-resolution MS analyzers, typically orbitrap or time of flight, are required. The same analytical techniques can be used for other metabolomics approaches, such as metabolic profiling or metabolite target analysis. However, in these approaches, metabolites that have previously been identified are measured.

Recent research has proposed polysaccharides, steroids, amino acids, and other biomarkers as potential biomarkers for estimating the time since death. The relationship between PMI and ATP breakdown products in the rat brain, kidney, and spleen was also discussed. Simultaneously, Donaldson and Lamont noticed changes in postmortem blood. The nitrogen-containing metabolites lactic acid, formic acid, and NADH were proposed as potential small molecule PMI markers. Postmortem changes in the aforementioned metabolites are associated with anaerobic metabolism, the absence of cellular respiration, and are attributed to bacterial putrefaction, according to the researchers. Donaldson and Lamont's subsequent study provided a comprehensive overview of the metabolic changes in blood after death [1-5].

Conclusion

Metabolomics studies have a high potential for detecting biomarkers of drug abuse. Changes observed so far on the endogenous level appear to be relatively small, partly unspecific, and may be insufficient in terms of the number of markers to conclusively prove drug intake. It's also a novel approach in xenometabolomics, especially for rare metabolic pathways. Metabolomics has the potential to explain new pathophysiological mechanisms in various death causes, as well as to estimate PMI in forensic investigations and to predict mortality risk. Nonetheless, more research is needed to investigate the potential of metabolomics in drug abuse analysis and other medico-legal fields.

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