Microbial Metabolomics to Understand Antimicrobial Resistance and Drug Metabolism

The bacterial metabolome provides a comprehensive profile of the biochemical and metabolic status within the cell. Gaining a deeper insight into the metabolome has proven to be immensely useful in discovering metabolic pathways underlying infections, identifying novel drug targets and biomarkers, and developing therapeutic interventions for combating antimicrobial resistance. Metabolomics has emerged as a powerful tool for decrypting the intricate and intertwined metabolic pathways operating in the bacterial and host systems. Further integration of metabolomics data with other -omics approaches, including genomics, transcriptomics, and proteomics, will be extremely helpful in obtaining a more holistic understanding. Although there exist many challenges that need to be overcome to derive all the answers, the continuous advancements happening in the field offer promising solutions. This chapter provides a succinct overview of the pivotal role played by metabolomics in understanding bacterial metabolism, drug metabolism, and antimicrobial resistance (AMR) diagnostics. This chapter also briefly addresses the current landscape of detection and analytical technologies utilized in metabolomics, highlighting both the ongoing advancements and the persisting challenges encountered in this field.