I am writing my thesis about metabolomics, and after reading about metabolites and proteins and how these have been measured through time for characterization and kinetics, I think metabolomics could be the one analytical technique that enables universal measurement of all intracellular, and possibly extracellular molecules. Even proteins with intact protein mode, for example. Maybe I'm too naive and inexperienced, and saving for some differences to enable separation (column chemistry), and ionization (ESI v APCI v direct injection), what are your thoughts on this statement?
Thank you Tim, that's a beautifully worded answer! You are right, I think there are limited scenarios where metabolomics a wide spectrum of answers. For example, I think an underexplored field is activity-based profiling and would be interesting to know if enzyme kinetics can be determined by LC-MS and compared to more traditional techniques like spectrophotometric. in many cases, spectrometry is dependent of the reaction between the analyte of interest and a third compound and is this complex that gives the instrument response. It would be fun to see if this is comparable, measuring said complex or directly the analyte by MS.
Your statement does not address the meaning of the word, "metabolomics". Metabolomics is a field of study, not a scientific technique. A long list of techniques are used to address various questions and problems.
As Tim pointed out such statements as "Universal measurement" are also false and misleading. No "universal" measurements exist. You should really invest some time reading up on the field of study first.
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