Volatolomics is a branch of chemistry that studies volatile organic compounds (VOCs) emitted by a biological system, under specific experimental conditions.

Etymology

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the suffix ‘omics’ refers to ‘the totality of some sort’. In biology, ‘omics’ techniques are used for the high-throughput analysis of DNA sequences and epigenetic modifications (genomics), mRNA and miRNA transcripts (transcriptomics), expressed proteins (proteomics), as well as synthesised metabolites (metabolomics) in a biological system (cell, tissue, organism, etc.) under a given set of experimental conditions.

Due to the high number of variables that are measured simultaneously, these techniques provide large and complex datasets that require adapted tools for data analysis and interpretation.[1][2][3]

Key concepts

The European Council directive 1999/13/EC defines volatile organic compounds (VOCs) as “any organic compound having at 293.15 K a vapor pressure of 0.01 kPa or more, or having a corresponding volatility under the particular conditions of use”.

In our daily life, these molecules are notably responsible of the flavor of food products, as well as of the fragrance of essential oils used in the cosmetics industry.[4]

In nature, these molecules are produced by bacteria and fungi.[5]

They are also synthesized by plants (flowers, fruits, leaves and roots) [6][7][8][9] and animals (humans,[10] insects,[11] etc.).

The profiling of VOCs emitted by living organisms takes an increasing importance in various scientific domains like in medicine, in food sciences or in chemical ecology.

For instance, in medicine, non-invasive diagnosis techniques of cancer based on the profiling of VOCs from the exhaled breath have been developed.[12][13] To this end, a variety of novel sensing approaches and nanomaterial based sensors are being used in volatolomics research.[14][15]

In the field of chemical ecology, gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry (GC-MS) is often used to characterize the volatile semiochemicals involved in the biotic interactions taking place aboveground [6][16][17] and belowground [9][18][19][20] between plants, insects and phytopathogens.

References

  1. ↑ Pielaat, A. et al. A foresight study on emerging technologies: State of the art of omics technologies and potential applications in food and feed safety. REPORT 1: Review on the state of art of omics technologies in risk assessment related to food and feed safety. EFSA Support. Inf. EN-495, 1–126 (2013).
  2. ↑ Goodacre, R., Vaidyanathan, S., Dunn, W. B., Harrigan, G. G. & Kell, D. B. Metabolomics by numbers: Acquiring and understanding global metabolite data. Trends Biotechnol. 22, 245–252 (2004).
  3. ↑ Patti, G. J., Yanes, O. and Siuzdak, G. Metabolomics: the apogee of the omics trilogy. Nat. Rev. Mol. Cell Biol. 13, 263–269 (2013).
  4. ↑ Brokl, M. et al. Improvement of ylang-ylang essential oil characterization by GC×GC-TOFMS. Molecules 18, 1783–1797 (2013).
  5. ↑ Insam, H. & Seewald, M. S. A. Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in soils. Biol. Fertil. Soils 46, 199–213 (2010).
  6. 1 2 Dudareva, N., Negre, F., Nagegowda, D. A. & Orlova, I. Plant volatiles: recent advances and future perspectives. CRC. Crit. Rev. Plant Sci. 25, 417–440 (2006).
  7. ↑ Dudareva, N., Klempien, A., Muhlemann, K. & Kaplan, I. Biosynthesis, function and metabolic engineering of plant volatile organic compounds. New Phytol. 198, 16–32 (2013).
  8. ↑ Holopainen, J. K. & Gershenzon, J. Multiple stress factors and the emission of plant VOCs. Trends Plant Sci. 15, 176–184 (2010).
  9. 1 2 Peñuelas, J. et al. Biogenic volatile emissions from the soil. Plant. Cell Environ. 37, 1866–1891 (2014).
  10. ↑ De Lacy Costello, B. et al. A review of the volatiles from the healthy human body. J. Breath Res. 8, 014001 (2014).
  11. ↑ Fassotte, B. et al. First evidence of a volatile sex pheromone in lady beetles. PLoS One 9, e115011 (2014).
  12. ↑ Broza, Yoav Y.; Mochalski, Pawel; Ruzsanyi, Vera; Amann, Anton; Haick, Hossam (Sep 2015). "Hybrid volatolomics and disease detection". Angew Chem Int Ed Engl. 54 (38): 11036–48. doi:10.1002/anie.201500153. PMID 26235374.
  13. ↑ Shehada, N. et al. Ultrasensitive silicon nanowire for real-world gas sensing: noninvasive diagnosis of cancer from breath volatolome. Nano Lett. 15, 1288–1295 (2015).
  14. ↑ Broza, Yoav Y.; Vishinkin, R; Barash, O; Nakhleh, MK; Haick, Hossam (Jul 2018). "Synergy between nanomaterials and volatile organic compounds for non-invasive medical evaluation". Chem Soc Rev. 47 (13): 4781–4859. doi:10.1039/c8cs00317c. PMID 29888356.
  15. ↑ Broza, Yoav Y. (May 2013). "Nanomaterial-based sensors for detection of disease by volatile organic compounds". Nanomedicine (Lond). 8 (5): 785–806. doi:10.2217/nnm.13.64. PMID 23656265.
  16. ↑ Tholl, D. et al. Practical approaches to plant volatile analysis. Plant J. 45, 540–560 (2006).
  17. ↑ Gosset, V. et al. Attacks by a piercing-sucking insect (Myzus persicae Sultzer) or a chewing insect (Leptinotarsa decemlineata Say) on potato plants (Solanum tuberosum L.) induce differential changes in volatile compound release and oxylipin synthesis. J. Exp. Bot. 60, 1231–1240 (2009).
  18. ↑ Wenke, K., Kai, M. & Piechulla, B. Belowground volatiles facilitate interactions between plant roots and soil organisms. Planta 231, 499–506 (2010).
  19. ↑ Rasmann, S., Hiltpold, I. & Ali, J. in Advances in Selected Plant Physiology Aspects (eds. Montanaro, G. & Bartolomeo, D.) 269–290 (InTech, 2012).
  20. ↑ Gfeller, A. et al. Characterization of volatile organic compounds emitted by barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) roots and their attractiveness to wireworms. J. Chem. Ecol. 39, 1129–1139 (2013).
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