An Overview on the Importance of Combining Complementary Analytical Platforms in Metabolomic Research

The analytical bias introduced by most of the commonly used techniques in metabolomics considerably hinders the simultaneous detection of all metabolites present in complex biological samples. In order to solve this limitation, the combination of complementary approaches is emerging in recent years as the most suitable strategy in order to maximize metabolite coverage. This review article presents a general overview of the most important analytical techniques usually employed in metabolomics: nuclear magnetic resonance, mass spectrometry and hybrid approaches. Furthermore, we emphasize the potential of integrating various tools in the form of metabolomic multi-platforms in order to get a deeper metabolome characterization, for which a revision of the existing literature in this field is provided. This review is not intended to be exhaustive but, rather, to give a practical and concise guide to readers not familiar with analytical chemistry on the considerations to account for the proper selection of the technique to be used in a metabolomic experiment in biomedical research.