Background The metabolites and metabolic pathways of hand-arm vibration syndrome have not yet been elucidated.

Objective To investigate the effect of local vibration on endogenous metabolites in rat serum by metabolomic analysis, to preliminarily explore the potential metabolic pathway of endogenous metabolites, so as to provide evidence for further research on the mechanism of hand-arm vibration syndrome.

Methods Thirty-two SPF male SD rats, (211.3±11.1) g, 7−8 weeks of age, were selected and randomly divided into three groups: control group (14 rats, without vibration), 7 d vibration group (9 rats, continuously vibration for 7 d), and 14 d vibration group (9 rats, continuous vibration for 14 d). The vibration rats were vibrated every day for 4 h, the frequency weighted acceleration was 4.9 m·s⁻², the vibration frequency was 125 Hz, and the vibration direction was one-way vertical vibration. The control group had the same conditions except not contacting vibration. After the vibration exposure, the blood samples taken from the abnormal aorta of rats were collected, and the changes of rat serum metabolome were analyzed by ultra-performance liquid chromatography-tandem time-of-flight mass spectrometry. Principal components analysis (PCA) was used to explore changes in rat serum metabolic profile, and orthogonal partial least squares-discriminant analysis (OPLS-DA) was used to screen out differential metabolites. Combined with online databases, a metabolic pathway enrichment analysis of differential metabolites was performed.

Results The PCA analysis showed that compared with the control group, the rat serum metabolic profiles in the 7 d group and the 14 d group were clearly differentiated, and the rat serum metabolic profiles in the 7 d group and the 14 d group partially overlapped. The OPLS-DA analysis showed significant differences between groups. The main parameters were: model interpretation rate R²Y=0.914, model predictive ability Q²=0.58. The OPLS-DA analysis screened out 26 and 119 differential metabolites from the 7 d group and the 14 d group respectively, and there were 24 common differential metabolites between the 7 d group and the 14 d group. The metabolomic pathway analysis showed that local vibration-induced changes in rat serum metabolism were mainly related to arachidonic acid metabolism in the 14 d group, among which the metabolites with significant effects were arachidonic acid, prostaglandin E₂, and prostaglandin D₂.

Conclusion Local vibration could affect the normal metabolism in rats, and the metabolic pathway with significant influence is arachidonic acid metabolism after a 14 d exposure and the involved metabolites are arachidonic acid, prostaglandin E₂, and prostaglandin D₂.