A Metabolomics and Big Data Approach to Cannabis Authenticity (Authentomics)

This narrative review examines the application of metabolomics-based 'authentomics' to cannabis product verification. The authors describe analytical platforms including NMR and chromatography-mass spectrometry for generating metabolomic profiles, and chemometric techniques such as PCA and PLS for multivariate analysis. The review identifies key barriers to standardized cannabis analysis, including the lack of uniform extraction and refinement methods—where extraction solvents ranging from water to supercritical CO₂ yield products with different chemical compositions—and the absence of universally agreed-upon reference standards. The authors argue that combining targeted and untargeted analytical approaches is essential to capture the full chemical variability of cannabis products. Implications are limited to proposing infrastructure and ISO-standardized platforms for cannabis quality assurance.