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Differences between the metabolic profiles of decompensated and compensated cirrhosis patients with Hepatitis B virus infections under high-performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry

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Abstract

To improve the grading and staging of liver cirrhosis among patients with HBV infection noninvasively, a high-performance liquid chromatography with mass spectrometry metabolomics method was used to investigate the potential metabolic biomarkers in the serum of patients with different degrees of hepatic cirrhosis. The results demonstrate that lysophosphatidyl choline (LPC) from positive electrospray ionization (ESI) mode, and fatty acids and bile acids from negative ESI mode play important roles in distinguishing decompensated from compensated cirrhosis. A total of 21 differential metabolites were found from the two groups of patients. LPCs, fatty acids, and taurocholic acid (TCA) 3-sulfate decreased in patients with decompensated cirrhosis, whereas other bile acids increased significantly. The levels of TCA 3-sulfate, LPC 16:0, and LPC 18:0 were significantly correlated with the stages of the decompensated cirrhosis, and they may serve as potential biomarkers for the stage assessment of liver cirrhosis in patients with HBV infections.

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Abbreviations

HPLC–MS:

High Performance liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry

HBV:

Hepatitis B virus

HCV:

Hepatitis C virus

LPC:

Lysophosphatidyl choline

ESI:

ElectroSpray Ionization

GC–MS:

Gas chromatography–mass spectrometry

RP-LC:

Reversed phase-liquid chromatography

HILIC:

Hydrophilic interaction chromatography

HCC:

Hepatocellular carcinoma

CTP:

Child-turcotte-pugh

MDC:

Mild to moderate decompensated cirrhosis

SDC:

Severe decompensated cirrhosis

RSD:

Relative standard deviation

PCA:

Principal component analysis

PLS-DA:

Partial least squares-discriminant analysis

LPC:

Lysophosphatidyl choline

LPE:

Lysophosphatidylethanolamine

FFA:

Free fatty acid

Stearic acid:

FFA 18:0

Arachidonic acid, AA:

FFA 20:4

Docosahexaenoic acid, DHA:

FFA 22:6

TCA:

Taurocholic acid

AST:

Aspartate aminotransferase

ALT:

Alanine aminotransferase

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Acknowledgments

This study was supported by National Basic Research Programme 973 of China (No. 2007CB513000), the State Key the State Key Science & Technology Project for Infectious Diseases (No. 2008ZX10002-017, No. 2008ZX10002-019), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 81000760).

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Correspondence to Hongwei Kong or Lanjuan Li.

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Yu Chen and Zhiliang Xu are contributed equally.

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Chen, Y., Xu, Z., Kong, H. et al. Differences between the metabolic profiles of decompensated and compensated cirrhosis patients with Hepatitis B virus infections under high-performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry. Metabolomics 8, 845–853 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11306-011-0379-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11306-011-0379-z

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