Foodomics

The first demand in food science is to ensure food safety. Today’s global movement of food and related raw materials presents researchers with a new challenge: the threat of worldwide contamination episodes. This is complicated by the fact that many food products contain multiple and processed ingredients shipped from all over the world to share common storage spaces and production lines. As a result, ensuring the safety, quality and traceability of food has never been more complicated or important than it is now. It requires the development of new, more advanced and more powerful analytical strategies.

Another general trend in modern food science is the connection between food and health. Indeed, food is fast being considered not only a source of energy but also an affordable way to prevent future illness. However, to scientifically understand and demonstrate the healthy effects of food and food ingredients, analytical strategies must overcome the challenges of food complexity. There is huge natural variability in foodstuffs, which contain a vast number of different nutrients and bioactive food compounds at a wide range of concentrations. The bioavailability and transformation of these compounds in the human gastrointestinal tract multiplies this complexity, even before consideration of the numerous targets with different affinities and specificities within the human body.

To meet these challenges, researchers in food science are moving from classical analytical methodologies to more advanced strategies, usually borrowing from well-established methods in medical, pharmacological and biotechnological research. In this context, Foodomics (1, 2) – a discipline that studies the food and nutrition domains through the application of advanced omics technologies to improve consumer’s well-being, health, and confidence – offers a new approach to food science and nutrition considered unapproachable a few years ago. Foodomics incorporates multiple concepts and approaches, such as nutrigenomics, nutrigenetics, microbiomics, toxicogenomics, nutritranscriptomics, nutriproteomics, nutrimetabolomics. 

These powerful platforms to analyze gene expression, proteins and metabolites must be adequately integrated to extract maximum biological meaning. Examples of this come from our recent studies on the effect of dietary ingredients on the variation of expression of gene, protein and metabolite levels in colon cancer (3) and leukemia cell proliferation. In the latter case, we integrated results from transcriptome and metabolome variations (4). Differences between two leukemia cell lines in the induction of transcription of genes that encode phase II detoxifying and antioxidant genes, as well as in the metabolic profiles, suggest that some dietary polyphenols exert differential chemopreventive effects in leukemia cells of different phenotypes. Foodomics can also help to investigate and solve other crucial topics in food science and nutrition, such as:

• Establishing the global role and functions of the gut microbiome. 
• The assessment of unintended effects on genetically modified crops and foods. 
• Obtaining sound scientific evidence that supports or refutes the beneficial claims of functional foods and constituents.
• Establishing analytical methods to guarantee food safety, origin, traceability and quality, including:
      -The discovery of biomarkers to detect unsafe products
      -Understanding the stress adaptation responses of food-borne pathogens
      -Early detection of food safety problems before they become global.
• Understanding the molecular basis of biological processes with agronomic and economic relevance, such as the interaction between crops and their pathogens, as well as physicochemical changes that take place during fruit ripening. 

I fully expect Foodomics to lead food science and nutrition research into a new era. 

Please read the other articles in this series:
Non-Targeted Analysis
Regulating Food Allergens
Electronic Senses
Emerging Contaminants

Alejandro Cifuentes is full research professor at the Laboratory of Foodomics, Institute of Food Science Research (CIAL), CSIC, Madrid, Spain. [email protected]