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Metabolomics enables the comprehensive profiling of cellular metabolites at the systems level, thereby providing a direct readout of biochemical activity that can be correlated with phenotype and used to identify therapeutic targets. Although several challenges remain to be addressed, emerging mass spectrometric and bioinformatic technologies have already proven to be effective tools for diagnostics and for providing insights into cell metabolism.
Studies of epidermisin vivohave revealed that a committed progenitor cell population can maintain normal adult tissue in the long term without support from a stem-cell population. Here, the stem-cell theories that explain epidermal homeostasis are challenged.