Plasma Metabolomics Characteristic of Gout Patients With Regular Glucose, Blood Pressure, and Blood Lipid
Abstract BackgroundGout is a metabolic disease and is the most common form of inflammatory arthritis affecting men. However, the pathogenesis of gout is still uncertain, and novel biomarkers are needed for early prediction and diagnosis of gout. The aim of this study is to reveal the metabolic alterations in plasma of gout patients and discover novel molecular biomarkers for early diagnosis. MethodsMetabonomics was employed to screen and identify novel biomarkers of gout based on human plasma. Ultra High-Pressure Liquid Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (UHPLC-MS) and orthogonal signal correction partial least squares discriminate analysis (OPLS-DA) were also used for metabonomics study. Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) and MetaboAnalyst were used for pathway enrichment analysis.ResultsIn this study, 51 metabolites in positive ion mode and 39 metabolites in negative ion mode were selected as remarkable significant variables between gout and healthy control group. Four unique pathways were found, namely Citrate cycle (TCA cycle), cysteine and methionine metabolism and alanine, aspartate, and glutamate metabolism. A total of 7 metabolites with AUC>0.75 were involved in the above three metabolic pathways, including L-Malic acid,Pyruvate,cis-Aconitate, Cysteine-S-sulfate, L-2-Aminobutyric acid, L-Methionine, Succinic semialdehyde.ConclusionThe present study identified the plasma metabolomics characteristic of gout through UHPLC-MS. The differential metabolites pathways of gout screened out were involved in Citrate cycle (TCA cycle), cysteine and methionine metabolism and alanine, aspartate, and glutamate metabolism. The metabolomics characteristic of gout could provide novel insights into the pathogenesis of gout.