Exploring the dynamic changes of metabolites and metabolic pathways during the development of the disease can help to further understand the etiology and pathogenesis of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). In this study, serum metabolomics based on gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) was employed to investigate the metabolic alterations at different stages of SLE using lupus-prone mice (MRL/lpr) of 9, 11, and 13 weeks of age. Multivariate statistical analysis was performed to view the alterations of metabolic profiles between MRL/lpr mice and age-matched C57BL/6 mice, and t-test and fold change criteria were used to identify differential metabolites at each stage. 11 changed metabolites were found in MRL/lpr mice at 9 weeks of age, which were mainly involved in the tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle, glycolysis, and butanoate metabolism; with the increase of week age, the TCA cycle was still disturbed, and the biosynthesis of fatty acids was significantly upregulated since 11 weeks of age; in addition, urea, urate, and indole-3-lactate were increased at 13 weeks of age. We found a time course of metabolic alterations in MRL/lpr mice, which may be related to the progression of SLE. These findings could provide a reference for studying the mechanism of SLE and judging the pathological stage and severity of the disease. The MS data have been deposited in Mendeley (https://www.mendeley.com/).
Keywords: GC/MS; disease progression; disease-associated metabolites; metabolomics; systemic lupus erythematosus.