A Cross-Platform Metabolomics Comparison Identifies Serum Metabolite Signatures of Liver Fibrosis Progression in Chronic Hepatitis C Patients

Frontiers in Molecular Biosciences

Philip Britz-McKibbin¹  Richel Poon¹  Zachary Kroezen¹  Holly Philbrick¹  Meera Shanmuganathan¹  Marco Puglia²  Mohammad Omair Sarfaraz³  Andrew Don-Wauchope³  David Wishart⁴ 

[1] Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada;Department of Medicine, Division of Gastroenterology, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada;Department of Pathology and Molecular Medicine, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada;Departments of Biological Sciences and Computing Science, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada;

关键词: metabolomics (OMICS);    capillary electrophoresis-mass spectrometry;    nuclear magnetic resonance;    serum;    biomarkers;    liver fibrosis;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fmolb.2021.676349

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Metabolomics offers new insights into disease mechanisms that is enhanced when adopting orthogonal instrumental platforms to expand metabolome coverage, while also reducing false discoveries by independent replication. Herein, we report the first inter-method comparison when using multisegment injection-capillary electrophoresis-mass spectrometry (MSI-CE-MS) and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy for characterizing the serum metabolome of patients with liver fibrosis in chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection (n = 20) and non-HCV controls (n = 14). In this study, 60 and 30 serum metabolites were detected frequently (>75%) with good technical precision (median CV < 10%) from serum filtrate samples (n = 34) when using standardized protocols for MSI-CE-MS and NMR, respectively. Also, 20 serum metabolite concentrations were consistently measured by both methods over a 500-fold concentration range with an overall mean bias of 9.5% (n = 660). Multivariate and univariate statistical analyses independently confirmed that serum choline and histidine were consistently elevated (p < 0.05) in HCV patients with late-stage (F2-F4) as compared to early-stage (F0-F1) liver fibrosis. Overall, the ratio of serum choline to uric acid provided optimal differentiation of liver disease severity (AUC = 0.848, p = 0.00766) using a receiver operating characteristic curve, which was positively correlated with liver stiffness measurements by ultrasound imaging (r = 0.606, p = 0.0047). Moreover, serum 5-oxo-proline concentrations were higher in HCV patients as compared to non-HCV controls (F = 4.29, p = 0.0240) after adjustment for covariates (age, sex, BMI), indicative of elevated oxidative stress from glutathione depletion with the onset and progression of liver fibrosis. Both instrumental techniques enable rapid yet reliable quantification of serum metabolites in large-scale metabolomic studies with good overlap for biomarker replication. Advantages of MSI-CE-MS include greater metabolome coverage, lower operating costs, and smaller sample volume requirements, whereas NMR offers a robust platform supported by automated spectral and data processing software.

【 授权许可】

Unknown