Objective
To compare hair samples of diagnosed chronic arsenic poisoning patients and healthy controls, screen differential metabolites, analyze related metabolic pathways, and provide a potential theoretical basis for further studies on the mechanism of arsenic toxicity.
Methods
Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC/MS) and metabonomics approach were used to analyze differential metabolites in hair samples collected from five chronic arsenic poisoning patients (observation group) and five healthy controls (control group). Principal component analysis (PCA) and partial least squares discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) were conducted to analyze metabolic profile differences between the two groups.
Results
The urinary arsenic level of the observation group(1.32±0.09) μmol/L was significantly higher than the diagnostic criteria (1.17 μmol/L) and that of the control group(0.29±0.10) μmol/L (P < 0.001). Ten differential metabolites were found between the two groups, among which four metabolites were up-regulated and six metabolites were down-regulated in the observation group when comparing with the control group. Four valid metabolites were selected according to related metabolic pathway analysis of differential metabolites. Compared with the control group, benzene acetaldehyde and γ-aminobutyric acid levels were increased, while glutathione and alanine levels were decreased in the observation group. Furthermore, all the four metabolites were related to oxidative stress in vivo.
Conclusion
The present study verifies the involvement of oxidative stress in the mechanism of chronic arsenic poisoning, and provide an insight into a possible mechanism of oxidative stress.
DownLoad: