Biology is massively complex. Humans have around 20,000 protein-encoding genes (1). Those translate into 20,000 to 100,000+ proteins, depending on whose metrics you use (2). Metabolite counts runs upwards of 110,000 with a host of bioactive isomers and isoforms (3). And those are just the biological components. Then there are the interactions. Interactions between genes; Interactions between proteins; Interactions between metabolites; Interactions between proteins and genes, between proteins and metabolites, between metabolites and genes. In fact, the “interactome” is so complicated that few have tried to quantify it. And biological systems are thermodynamic systems. There distribution rates of cells, reaction rates and equilibria, entropy. There are local cellular interactions impacted by distant signaling. Bewildering complexity. Biomedical research community is confronted with trying to bring clarity to this complexity in order to elucidate potential therapeutic routes for various diseases.

Genomics analysis sheds some light on the potential of the system and immunoaffinity techniques provide some insight into the current state of the system but genomics, while multiplexed, measures what might be and immunoaffinity techniques, while measuring the current state, are limited in the number of analytes measured and often suffer from non-specificity. LC-MS workflows provide a complementary analytical workflow that is capable of simultaneously measuring 10s to 1000s of analytes with exceptional specificity.

Whether you are interested in measuring the spatial distribution of endogenous or exogenous compounds, profiling the entire metabolome, and/or quantifying a specific class of lipids or a metabolic pathway like the TCA cycle, Waters can empower your research with LC-MS-based solutions that are both powerful enough to answer your most rigorous questions and easy-to-use for your entire lab staff. For example, Waters has developed the Targeted Omics Method Library, an online repository of downloadable tandem quadrupole method packages that have been developed by the world’s best application scientists. Each method package includes a plug-and-play method file for a panel for analytes, an application note for the method, and a list of isotopically-labeled standards for the method analytes.