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Briefings in Bioinformatics Advance Access published online on May 11, 2006
Briefings in Bioinformatics, doi:10.1093/bib/bbl009
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© The Author 2006. Published by Oxford University Press. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Review

On the analysis and interpretation of correlations in metabolomic data

Ralf Steuer *

* To whom correspondence should be addressed.
Ralf Steuer, E-mail: steuer{at}agnld.uni-potsdam.de


  Abstract

A remarkable inherent feature of cellular metabolism is that the concentrations of a small but significant number of metabolites are strongly correlated when measurements of biological replicates are performed. This review seeks to summarize the recent efforts to elucidate the origin of these observed correlations and points out several aspects concerning their interpretation. It is argued that correlations between metabolites differ profoundly from their transcriptomic and proteomic counterparts, and a straightforward interpretation in terms of the underlying biochemical pathways will unavoidably fail. It is demonstrated that the comparative correlations analysis offers a way to exploit the observed correlations to obtain additional information about the physiological state of the system.

Keywords: correlation and association networks; data analysis; differential correlations; metabolomics.

Ralf Steuer studied physics at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München and the Humboldt Universität zu Berlin. Postgraduate studies were done at the University of Potsdam in close association with the Max-Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology. Main topics of interest are: metabolomic data analysis, structure and dynamics of metabolic systems, effects of noise and fluctuations in cellular systems. R.S. currently holds a post-doctoral position at the University of Potsdam.


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