加拿大：建成首个人类小分子代谢物数据库

加拿大阿尔伯塔大学的研究小组日前宣布，他们建成了世界上首个人类小分子代谢物组数据库。专家认为，这将对许多传染病、遗传病或环境引发的疾病的诊断、预防和监测产生重大影响。

人类小分子代谢物组是所有人体内产生的小分子代谢物的总称，是化学意义上的“人类基因组”。科学家认为，如果说人类基因组描绘了生命的蓝图，那么就可以讲小分子代谢物组展示的是生命的成分。由于小分子代谢物对人体健康和生理的影响更为直接，研究小组认为该项目将比人类基因组计划带来更加直接的医疗影响。

小组发表在最新一期《核酸研究》杂志上的报告称，目前，科学家已经在人体中分析识别出了2500多种小分子代谢物、1200种药物分子和3500种食物成分。加拿大人类小分子代谢物组计划起步于2004年。参与该计划的50位科学家分别来自阿尔伯塔大学和卡尔加利大学。他们在2年半的时间里研究并收集了所有已知的人类代谢物及其与化学、生物和疾病有关的数据，将其编入了人类小分子代谢物组中。每种已知的小分子代谢物的详细信息可以在http://www.hmdb.ca网址中的人类小分子代谢物数据库（HMDB）中查到。

研究小组认为，这一成果是开创诊断和检测疾病新纪元的第一步。小组负责人、阿尔伯塔大学计算科学和生物学教授维斯哈特博士说，人类小分子代谢物组计划的目的是使医生能够更好地诊断和治疗疾病。人体DNA的一个变化就会导致代谢物水平发生10万倍的变化。小分子代谢物对人们的食物、健康状况、情绪、居住环境、白昼的长短等因素非常敏感。

维斯哈特表示，目前绝大多数医学检查依靠测量血液或尿液中的小分子代谢物的含量进行，但是，日常临床检验中只检验了不到1%的已知小分子代谢物。他说，使用HMDB中的数据，人们可以查找到哪种代谢物与哪种疾病有关，其浓度是否正常，还可以发现代谢物的位置，以及基因与代谢物之间的关系。他说，首次将代谢物的数据汇编在一起，可以极大地节省诊断疾病的时间和费用。

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HMDB 3.0—The Human Metabolome Database in 2013                                                                                            

The Human Metabolome Database (HMDB) (www.hmdb.ca) is a resource dedicated to providing scientists with the most current and comprehensive coverage of the human metabolome. Since its first release in 2007, the HMDB has been used to facilitate research for nearly 1000 published studies in metabolomics, clinical biochemistry and systems biology. The most recent release of HMDB (version 3.0) has been significantly expanded and enhanced over the 2009 release (version 2.0). In particular, the number of annotated metabolite entries has grown from 6500 to more than 40 000 (a 600% increase). This enormous expansion is a result of the inclusion of both ‘detected’ metabolites (those with measured concentrations or experimental confirmation of their existence) and ‘expected’ metabolites (those for which biochemical pathways are known or human intake/exposure is frequent but the compound has yet to be detected in the body). The latest release also has greatly increased the number of metabolites with biofluid or tissue concentration data, the number of compounds with reference spectra and the number of data fields per entry. In addition to this expansion in data quantity, new database visualization tools and new data content have been added or enhanced. These include better spectral viewing tools, more powerful chemical substructure searches, an improved chemical taxonomy and better, more interactive pathway maps. This article describes these enhancements to the HMDB, which was previously featured in the 2009 NAR Database Issue. (Note to referees, HMDB 3.0 will go live on 18 September 2012.).
                                                                                                                                                                    MetaboLights—an open-access general-purpose repository for metabolomics studies and associated meta-data  
                                                                                                                                                                                    MetaboLights (http://www.ebi.ac.uk/metabolights) is the first general-purpose, open-access repository for metabolomics studies, their raw experimental data and associated metadata, maintained by one of the major open-access data providers in molecular biology. Metabolomic profiling is an important tool for research into biological functioning and into the systemic perturbations caused by diseases, diet and the environment. The effectiveness of such methods depends on the availability of public open data across a broad range of experimental methods and conditions. The MetaboLights repository, powered by the open source ISA framework, is cross-species and cross-technique. It will cover metabolite structures and their reference spectra as well as their biological roles, locations, concentrations and raw data from metabolic experiments. Studies automatically receive a stable unique accession number that can be used as a publication reference (e.g. MTBLS1). At present, the repository includes 15 submitted studies, encompassing 93 protocols for 714 assays, and span over 8 different species including human, Caenorhabditis elegans, Mus musculus and Arabidopsis thaliana. Eight hundred twenty-seven of the metabolites identified in these studies have been mapped to ChEBI. These studies cover a variety of techniques, including NMR spectroscopy and mass spectrometry.

来源：科技日报