Alzheimer's disease & dementia

Novel blood metabolite biomarkers linked to Alzheimer's disease

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common form of dementia and affects memory and thinking in the elderly. With a projected global increase in the number of affected individuals, reaching an estimated 152.8 million by 2050, ...

Obstetrics & gynaecology

Mapping changes to metabolic pathways during pregnancy

A large team of ob-gyns, regenerative medicine and fetal development specialists and metabolic researchers in China has tested macaques and mapped many of the changes that happen to metabolic pathways in primates during pregnancy.

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Metabolite

Metabolites are the intermediates and products of metabolism. The term metabolite is usually restricted to small molecules. A primary metabolite is directly involved in normal growth, development, and reproduction. Alcohol is an example of a primary metabolite produced in large-scale by industrial microbiology. A secondary metabolite is not directly involved in those processes, but usually has an important ecological function. Examples include antibiotics and pigments. Some antibiotics use primary metabolites as precursors, such as actinomycin which is created from the primary metabolite, tryptophan.

Examples of primary metabolites produced by industrial microbiology:

The metabolome forms a large network of metabolic reactions, where outputs from one enzymatic chemical reaction are inputs to other chemical reactions.

Metabolites from chemical compounds, whether inherent or pharmaceutical, are formed as part of the natural biochemical process of degrading and eliminating the compounds. The rate of degradation of a compound is an important determinant of the duration and intensity of its action. Profiling metabolites of pharmaceutical compounds, drug metabolism, is an important part of drug discovery, leading to an understanding of any undesirable side effects.

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