Current Evidence: Application of Metabolomic Approaches to Reveal Toxic Effect of Chemicals and Herbal Medicines

Humans are often exposed to a variety of toxic substances (including some drugs, herbs, environmental pollutants); all these heterologous substances can result in metabolic changes in organism. Clarifying their metabolic details will help to understand the beneficial and toxic effects of those heterologous substances. Traditional toxicology research tends to focus on toxic doses and time rather than on mechanisms and detoxification methods. Compared with other omics methods, metabolomics has unique, dynamic, and phenotypic characteristics. Similarly, metabolomics can link the interaction between genes and the environment; it represents both the downstream output of the genome and the upstream input of the environment, and reflects the interactions between biological system and environmental stimulation. It highlighting not only biological mechanisms but also closely related to the phenotype of biological events, which is widely employed in toxicology studies presently. Therefore, strengthening toxicological research based on metabolomics can help better understand the mechanisms of action and toxicological effects of toxic substances. Thus, present review systematically summarized and discussed the current application status of metabolomics approaches in toxicology, which might contribute to provide a deeper understanding of the processes and mechanisms of toxicity caused by related chemicals and herbal medicines, thereby reducing the occurrence of damage and providing technical reference for toxicity research.