Figure 1: Deciphering the outcome of complex interplay between extrinsic and intrinsic factors in biological systems using metabolomics. Different functional levels in a biological system such as genome, transcriptome, proteome and metabolome interact with each other via complex flow of bi-directional information. Each level is influenced by environmental factors such as diet, drug, disease, lifestyle and age, which in turn dictate the phenotype of the biological system. Metabolomics uses untargeted profiling to discover alterations in metabolome arising out of complex interactions. A targeted profiling approach is instrumental in verifying alterations known to exist due to complex interplay of different factors thus providing tools for hypothesis testing in a diabetes research.