Untargeted metabolomics for the study of antiinfective plants

Natural products, including plants, have played a remarkable role in the development of antiinfective therapeutics. However, in their unrefined form, natural products consist of complex mixtures of many structurally diverse components, the identities of which are often not known, and incredibly varied due to variations in taxonomy, environment, and collection and processing. A primary challenge facing researchers is unraveling the intricacies of such complex mixtures and assigning structures and biological activities to the individual components. With this chapter, we review various metabolomics-based strategies that can be employed towards this goal. We summarize the traditional approach of bioassay-guided fractionation and describe how newer methodologies (metabolomics and biochemometrics approaches) employing metabolite profiles and integrating biological activity data can be employed to enhance the antiinfective discovery process.