Nuclear magnetic resonance based metabolomics and liver diseases: Recent advances and future clinical applications

Table 1 Advantages and disadvantages of nuclear magnetic resonance and mass spectroscopy

	NMR	MS
Sensitivity (detection limit)	Usually micromolar (nanomolar with cryosonde)	Picomolar
Reproducibility	High	Low
Detected	Non targeted approach	Targeted approach
Metabolite	Detect metabolite Only if contain proton on the molecule	Need specific preparation to well detected some metabolites (Lipids…)
Metabolite identification	Easy, using 1D and/or 2D spectra and databases	More difficult, need sometime complementary analysis
Number of know identifiable metabolites	More than 200	More than 4000
Sample	Simple preparation (minimal add of D2O, Buffer and sometime reference)	Preparation more complex (protein extraction, etc.)
	Non destructive method	Destructive method
	Need 400 μL (less than 10 μL with microprobe)	Need few microliters
Type of sample	Liquid (urine, whole blood, serum, plasma, etc.) and intact tissue	Liquid
Cost of machine	Very high	High
Cost of sample analysis	Lower	Higher
Signal acquisition time	5 to 15 min for 1D spectra	Around 10 min
	More longer for 2D spectra (few hours)

NMR: Nuclear magnetic resonance; MS: Mass spectroscopy.