Rapid NMR data acquisition with improved resolution and sensitivity for high-throughput metabolomic analysis.

NMR-based metabolomics has witnessed rapid advancements in recent years with the continuous development of new methods to enhance the sensitivity, resolution and speed of data acquisition. Some of the approaches were earlier used for peptide and protein resonance assignments and have now been adapted to metabolomics. At the same time, new NMR methods involving novel data acquisition techniques, suited particularly for high-throughput analysis in metabolomics, have been developed. In this review, we focus on the different sampling strategies or data acquisition methods that have been developed in our laboratory and other groups to acquire NMR spectra rapidly with high sensitivity and resolution for metabolomics. In particular, we focus on the use of multiple receivers, phase modulation NMR spectroscopy and fast pulsing methods for identification and assignments of metabolites.