ABSTRACT
Metabolomics, the science of small chemical molecules known as metabolites, is now finding applications that span almost the full width of biological and biotechnological research. The integration of these diverse disciplines is essential in order to successfully implement the two main accepted experimental approaches in the field: targeted and untargeted metabolomics. The main advantages of targeted metabolomics are specificity, quantitative reproducibility and a relatively high throughput. The chapter discusses the basic knowledge and computational tools from processing raw spectrometric data to the comprehensive understanding of cell metabolism and its interactions with the environment. Additionally, a mechanistic interpretation of the metabolic differences between samples can be inferred by exploring metabolic networks.
