text: Scientists at the University of Alberta have been systematically characterizing specific biofluid metabolomes including the serum metabolome, the urine metabolome, the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) metabolome  and the saliva metabolome.  These efforts have involved both experimental metabolomic analysis (involving NMR, GC-MS, ICP-MS, LC-MS and HPLC assays) as well as extensive literature mining.  According to their data, the human serum metabolome contains at least 4,200 different compounds (including many lipids), the human urine metabolome contains at least 3,000 different compounds (including hundreds of volatiles and gut microbial metabolites), the human CSF metabolome contains nearly 500 different compounds while the human saliva metabolome contains approximately 400 different metabolites, including many bacterial products.