Metabolic phenotyping in the mouse model of urinary tract infection shows that 3-hydroxybutyrate in plasma is associated with infection

PLoS One. 2017 Oct 16;12(10):e0186497. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0186497. eCollection 2017.

Abstract

Urinary tract infection is one of the most common bacterial infections worldwide. Current diagnosis of urinary tract infection chiefly relies on its clinical presentation, urine dipstick tests and urine culture. Small molecules found in bio-fluids related with both infection and recovery would facilitate diagnosis and management of UTI. Mass spectrometry-based fingerprinting of plasma and urine at 3 time points, pre-infection (t = -24h), infection (t = 24h) and post 3-day treatment (t = 112h), were acquired in the following four groups: mice which were healthy, infected but not treated, infected and treated with ciprofloxacin, and infected and treated with Relinqing® granules (n = 6 per group). A metabolomics workflow including multivariate analysis and ROC regression was employed to select metabolic features that correlated with UTI and its treatment. Circa 4,000 molecular features were acquired for each sample. The small acid 3-hydroxybutyrate in plasma was found to be differentiated for urinary tract infection, with an area under the curve = 0.97 (95% confidence interval: 0.93-1.00, accuracy = 0.91, sensitivity = 0.92 and specificity = 0.91). The level of 3-hydroxybutyrate in plasma was depleted after infection with a fold change of -22 (q < 0.0001). Correlation between plasma 3-hydroxybutyrate and urine bacterial number in all groups and time points was r = -0.753 (p < 0.0001). The findings show that 3-hydroxybutyrate is depleted in blood and strongly associated with UTI at both infection and post-treatment stage in a UTI mouse model. Further work is envisaged to assess the clinical potential of blood tests to assist with UTI management.

MeSH terms

  • 3-Hydroxybutyric Acid / blood*
  • 3-Hydroxybutyric Acid / urine
  • Animals
  • Disease Models, Animal
  • Dogs
  • Female
  • Metabolomics*
  • Mice
  • Phenotype*
  • Time Factors
  • Urinary Tract Infections / blood*
  • Urinary Tract Infections / urine

Substances

  • 3-Hydroxybutyric Acid

Grants and funding

YH was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (No.812606880), http://www.nsfc.gov.cn/publish/portal1/; Science and Technology Foundation of Guizhou Province (No.2012-7040), http://kjt.gzst.gov.cn/; National Key Technology R&D Program (2013BAI11B01), http://www.most.gov.cn/eng/programmes1/200610/t20061009_36224.htm. These funders supported the study design, data collection and analysis. PH was supported by China Scholarship Council, http://en.csc.edu.cn/. The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.