Metabolic Impairments Caused by Pesticides in Mammals and Their Interactions with Other Pollutants

The biological systems are exposed to a complex environment in which the contaminants can interact in a synergistic/antagonistic fashion and for this reason, the study of “ chemical cocktails ” is of great interest to fully understand the final biological effect. To evaluate the final biological response of a pollutant, it is essential to have an adequate analytical methodology that allows the correct monitoring of environmental systems in order to establish their quality, and, when appropriate, the application of corrective measures. Undoubtedly, massive methods “ the omics ” are among the most efficient current tools. To this end, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics and chemical speciation can provide very useful information, mainly when they are combined. However, the combination of proteomics with metabolomics has some drawbacks as the temporal space is different (i.e. metabolomics gives information about what happens right now, but it can be related with numerous post-translational modifications happened previously). In this sense, it seems that the combination of genomics with metabolomics is easier. Thus, when metabolomics data are interpreted in combination with genomic, transcriptomic and proteomic results, in the so-called systems biology approach, a holistic knowledge of the organism/process under investigation can be achieved.