Chromatography hyphenated to high resolution mass spectrometry in untargeted metabolomics for investigation of food (bio)markers

Currently, there is a growing demand by our society, authorities and science to increase the knowledge about the quality of food and its relationship with health and disease. Untargeted metabolomics approaches are emerging as powerful tools for exploring metabolic changes in biological systems under different conditions with great potential in the food field. To this aim, it is necessary to apply advanced analytical techniques, such as chromatography hyphenated to high resolution mass spectrometry, which provides enough sensitivity and selectivity to cover a wide range of metabolites in complex samples, as food and biological samples. The objective of this work is to provide an overview of the most widely adopted strategies based on the use of high resolution mass spectrometry-based techniques for the identification of food (bio)markers through the untargeted metabolomics workflow. Detailed information is provided about the trends in each stage of the metabolomics process from updated literature with the objective to help researchers to select the most appropriate metabolic approaches.