Canadian researchers have completed the world's first map of the human metabolome, which could help develop new and improved medical tests.

The Human Metabolome Project, led by University of Alberta researcher, Dr. David Wishart, has been working to describe the chemicals found in and made by the human body.

Wishart told Canada AM, "if you can think of the genome as the blueprint of life, the metabolome represents the ingredients of life. That includes things like glucose, cholesterol, triglycerides, it includes things like vitamins and amino acids, all the things that are in your body that help us function."

The collection of the list of chemicals and compounds in the human body has been in progress since 2004, and consists of about 2,500 different chemicals. The instructions to produce these chemicals are in the genome.

The research, published this week in the Nucleic Acids Research journal, could help make blood tests, urine tests and other medical diagnostic procedures more effective and useful.

"Typically when a doctor does a medical test or clinical test on you with blood or urine, they look at about 10 or 12 different chemicals, typically," Wishart said. "With both this list and the technologies that we've developed and other groups are developing, potentially we'll be able to read out several hundred or perhaps even a thousand different chemicals at once."

He adds that the list will help scientists discover what the normal chemical concentrations in the body are supposed to be, which ones are associated with diseases, and also link the chemicals to the genes responsible for producing and regulating them.

Pieces of the puzzle

The map of the human genome and the map of the metabolome "fit like two pieces of a puzzle together" to help understand the molecular basis of disease, Wishart says.

He also expects the completion of both maps will help scientists significantly improve their understanding of diagnosing and monitoring disease as well as the roles of food and nutrition.

"Technically even when you go into a doctor's office they're looking at a little slice of your metabolome, but it's only a tiny slice. With the new technologies, some of which are starting to appear in research hospitals, using some of the fingerprint methodologies we've developed those things are starting to happen...this isn't something that's going to be decades away, it's happening."