A Review of “ Metabonomic Study of Host – Phage Interaction By Nuclear Magnetic Resonance- And
Statistical Total Correlation Spectroscopy- Based Analysis”
Sonkar, Kanchan, Rudra N. Purusottam, and Neeraj Sinha. Metabonomic study of Host- Phage Interaction by
Nuclear Magnetic Resonane- and Statistical Total Correlation Spectroscopy- Based Analysis. Journal of
Analytical Chemistry. 2012. 84(9), pp. 4063-4070.
Monique Gray, April 22, 2012
DESRIPTION OF PAPER
This article I found was from the Journal of Analytical Chemistry. Researchers are interested in
determining the structure of low concentration metabolites under different environmental stress
conditions. This is because most researchers are interested in the identification, quantification, and
qualification of metabolites in biofluids. Thus, the NMR is a useful instrument because helps characterize
the structure of organic molecules. Thus, from a bio-analytical perspective, the NMR serves a good
analytical instrument to provide a foundation about the structures and components of biological
metabolites. Thus, it’s hard to determine one structure for these very complex molecules, so, in
conjunction with the NMR data; one can use different statistical systems to analyze metabolites. A
statistical system is the Partial Least Squares Discriminant Analysis (PLS-DA) is a system that provides
information about the variables responsible for metabolic variation and determines differences in the
metabolic profile. Therefore, this technique can be used in conjunction with structural assignment in
NMR spectrum and can be used to help connect differences in molecules together. In order to develop
data about the structural aspect of metabolites, researchers used different strains of bacterial phages.
They cultured bacteria and prepared them for experimentation. All bacterial phages with grown at
different condition of stress and then cultured and produced. When comparing the different cultural
HNMR spectra, it was found that some compounds were present in the infected bacterial culture but
those same compounds were absent in the non-infected bacterial spectra. The present compound were,
branched amino acids, lactate, acetate, pyruvate, glyceraldehydes, ascorbate, indole, and some energy
carrier molecules. Statistical analysis was done that involved the NMR data.
CRITQUE OF SCIENCE
After reading this article, I found the introduction and methods section to be the easiest to read. The
results and the discussion seemed harder to convey and understand. The NMR spectra were very
distinctive and easy to interpret. It showed a very detailed analysis of the sample and showed how and
why the two spectra from the (infected and non-infected) cultures were different based on the NMR
output. The statistical data presented didn’t seem as distinctive as and easier to convey than the NMR
data did. It wasn’t as detailed. However, this could be because that particular system isn’t as
sophisticated or detailed oriented as the NMR data system is, and/or it could be because I don’t have a
big background in statistics. The results and discussion session was very complex and was hard to
understand what exactly they were measuring, although it seemed clear in the introduction. It was hard
to understand how their data output and the results coincided together.
SUGGESTION TO IMPROVE
In order to make the article more readable for undergraduate students it is a good idea to maybe
explain how the results pertain to what the actual experimental goal was. Although, this article explains
a little bit about what the statistical systems are that they are using, an explanation of why the systems
are being used and how they are being used in the actual experiment should be stated instead of a
generic version. Also, more detailed explanation of the figures pertaining to the statistically systems
would also help well.
SUMMARY OF THE CRITIQUE
Some suggestion for better understanding the data and article were provided above. One of the
suggestions was to better explain the experimental design of how the statistical analysis will be
employed and how it will be employed in the actual experiment instead of telling what was done. It
would be a suggestion to better explain the figures that were presented for the statistical analysis so
that people who don’t have a huge background in statistics could understand.
Review Article 2