Alcohol abuse and its related diseases are the major risk factors for human health. Although the mechanism of alcohol-related disorders has been widely investigated, serum metabolites associated with long-term alcohol intake have not been well explored. In this study, we aimed to investigate the profiles of serum metabolites and lipid species of rats chronically exposed to alcohol, which may be involved in the pathogenesis of alcohol-associated disease. An 1H NMR-based metabolomics and Q-TOF/MS-based lipidomics approach were applied to investigate the profile of serum metabolites and lipid species of rats administrated daily with alcohol (12% vol/vol, 10 ml/kg per day, i.g.) for one year continuously. The rats administered with sterile water (10 ml/kg per day, i.g.) were used as control. We found that alcohol affected mostly the lipid species rather than small molecule metabolites in the serum of both female and male rats. Among the modified lipids, glycerophospholipid, sphingolipid and glycerolipids metabolism pathways were profoundly altered. The prominent changes in lipid profiles included diacylglycerol (DG), lysophosphatidylcholine (LysoPC), phosphatidic acid (PA), phosphatidylcholine (PC), phosphatidylethanolamine (PE) and triacylglycerol (TG). Moreover, fatty-acyl profile of lipids and total degree of unsaturation of fatty acid were also significantly altered by alcohol. The modified lipidomic profile may help to understand the pathogenesis of alcohol-associated diseases and also be of value for clinical evaluation of alcohol abuse, alcohol-associated disease diagnosis.
Keywords: Alcohol abuse; Lipidomics; Metabolomics; NMR.
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