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The omics, which means comprehensive analysis of a specific layer in a cellular system, are emerging as essential methodological approaches for molecular biology and systems biology. However, single omics analysis does not always provide enough information to understand the behaviors of a cellular system. Therefore, a combination of multiple omics analyses, the multi-omics approach, is required to acquire a precise picture of living organisms. In this chapter, basic concepts of omics studies, and recent technologies in the omics of metabolism and published multi-omics analyses of Escherichia coli, are reviewed. Subsequently, a large-scale multi-omics analysis of E. coli K-12, including transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics and fluxomics, is presented. This study uncovered the complementary strategies of E. coli that result in a metabolic network robust against various types of perturbations, therefore demonstrating the power of a multi-omics, data-driven approach for understanding the functional principles of total cellular systems. © 2009 Springer Netherlands.

Saliva is an informative biofluid that can be used to monitor a wide range of oral and systemic diseases. This medium has gained much attention as a diagnostic fluid because of its simple collection, non-invasiveness, and low cost. Many studies have been conducted to identify diagnostic markers in saliva for several diseases, including HIV, diabetes, viral hepatitis and, importantly, cancers. The recently developed comprehensive molecular profiling approaches, such as transcriptomics and proteomics, can accelerate these studies. Metabolomics, profiling of all intracellular metabolites, has become a powerful new omics tool that can provide insight into cellular functions and facilitate biomarker discovery. Although there are several approaches to profiling metabolites, capillary electrophoresis time-of-flight-mass spectrometry (CE-TOFMS) has a prominent advantage because it enables comprehensive, simultaneous and quantitative analysis of key metabolites in various pathways, such as glycolysis, pentose phosphate pathway, tricarboxylic acid cycle and urea cycle, as well as amino acid and nucleotide metabolism. Thus, this method is well-suited to biomarker discovery in cancer cells because there are diverse metabolic aberrations related to energy metabolism and cellular proliferation in cancer cells. We recently applied CE-TOFMS-based metabolomic analysis to evaluate the potential of using the salivary metabolomic signature to detect oral cancer (oral squamous cell carcinoma cancers). The metabolic fingerprints embedded in the salivary specimens showed a prominent difference between oral cancer and healthy controls. Here, we introduce the marriage of CE and TOFMS, which has the potential to provide a state-of-the art salivary-based detection method for oral cancer. © 2011 by Nova Science Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.

Identification of a small number of bioactive components in herbal medicines is often inadequate for elucidating biological effects and for quality control because of the complexity of the components. Qualitative and quantitative analyses of all the components in herbal medicines will therefore be of considerable value. Metabolomics is a new branch of "omics" science concerned with understanding the all the metabolites in living systems. Recent advances in the development of analytical technologies in metabolomics have made a considerable contribution to various studies of herbal medicines. In particular, mass spectrometry (MS) combined with separation systems have enabled us to simul-taneously obtain datasets for dozens or hundreds of molecules. MS-based non-targeted profiling techniques provide plentiful information about known bioactive components as well as all observable components. Here, we provide an overview of the metabolomic analysis of herbal medicines. Prospects for further research based on our primary results are also discussed. © 2012 Nova Science Publishers, Inc.

Currently, individual molecular biomarkersare often used to detect cancers. However, to identify cancer-specific signatures appropriate for clinical use, a paradigm shift is necessary in terms of using multiple molecular profiling techniques to identify new prognostic biomarkers and therapeutic targets, and to understand the aberrant biochemical pathways. Metabolomics, a new omics, provides a holistic view of the cellular dynamic behavior derived from various endogenetic and exogenetic perturbations as well as genomics, transcriptomics and proteomics. To simultaneously assess a broad range of metabolites, we have developed profiling techniques based on capillary electrophoresis-mass spectrometry (CE-MS) that can quantify charged molecules,principally those involved in the central metabolic pathways; i.e., glycolysis, pentose phosphate pathway, amino acid pathway, nucleotide pathway, tricarboxylic cycle, and urea cycle. Because tumors exhibit unique cellular metabolic profiles to survive or to enable excessive proliferation in an aberrant microenvironment, CE-MS can offera significant opportunity to fully understand cancer metabolism. Here, we provide an overview of CE-MS-based metabolomics and two applications; 1) pathway-level metabolic variation to provide novel insights into the microenvironmentof human tumor tissues, and 2) the potential use of salivary metabolites in cancer detection. © 2011 Nova Science Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.