Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved antipyretic, anti-inflammatory, and analgesic drugs to mitigate pain, however it is associated with gastrointestinal injury and cardiovascular disease in some individuals. Metabolomics has the potential to understand the interaction of host and the drugs, such as NSAIDs administration. This discipline has been used by many researchers to understand the serious side effects of NSAIDs. We highlighted (1) the potential of metabolomics in understanding the pathogenesis of adverse events due to NSAIDs administration; (2) choice of metabolomics techniques, bio sample handling; (3) review of metabolomics studies in the front of NSAIDs in different biofluids and tissues; (4) pathway analysis of the data presented in the published literature. In our analysis we find tricarboxylic acid cycle (TCA), "glycine serine and threonine metabolism," "alanine, aspartate, and glutamate metabolism," and fatty acid metabolism to be altered by the NSAIDs like ibuprofen, indomethacin, naproxen, aspirin, and celecoxib. In conclusion, metabolomics allows the use of biological samples to identify useful pathways involved in disease progression, and subsequently inform a greater understanding of the disease pathogenesis. A further in-depth investigation of the associated pathways mentioned above holds the potential for drug targets for side effects mitigation.
Keywords: metabolomics; non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs; pathway analysis.