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Post-mortem changes in metabolomic profiles of human serum, aqueous humor and vitreous humor

Metabolomics volume 16, Article number: 80 (2020) Cite this article

Abstract

Introduction

Application of metabolomic methods to forensic studies may expand the limits of the post-mortem interval (PMI) estimation, and improve the accuracy of the estimation. To this end, it is important to determine which tissue is the most suitable for analysis, and which compounds are the most promising candidates for PMI estimation.

Objectives

This work is aimed at the comparison of human serum, aqueous humor (AH), and vitreous humor (VH) as perspective tissues for metabolomic-based PMI estimation, at the determination of most promising PMI biomarkers, and at the development of method of PMI estimation based on the measurement of concentrations of PMI biomarkers.

Methods

Quantitative metabolomic profiling of samples of the human serum, AH, and VH taken at different PMIs has been performed with the use of NMR spectroscopy.

Results

It is found that the metabolomic changes in anatomically isolated ocular fluids are slower and smoother than that in blood. A good positive time correlation (Pearson coefficient r > 0.5) was observed for several metabolites, including hypoxanthine, choline, creatine, betaine, glutamate, and glycine. A model for PMI estimation based on concentrations of several metabolites in AH and VH is proposed.

Conclusions

The obtained results demonstrate that the metabolomic analysis of AH and VH is more suitable for the PMI estimation than that of serum. The compounds with good positive time correlation can be considered as potential PMI biomarkers.

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Funding

This research was funded by Russian Foundation for Basic Research (Project 18-33-20097 in NMR measurements, and Project 18-29-13023 in sample preparation). We thank Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the RF for the access to NMR equipment.

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Affiliations

  1. International Tomography Center SB RAS, Institutskaya 3a, Novosibirsk, Russia, 630090

    Ekaterina A. Zelentsova, Lyudmila V. Yanshole, Arsenty D. Melnikov & Yuri P. Tsentalovich

  2. Novosibirsk State University, Pirogova 2, Novosibirsk, Russia, 630090

    Ekaterina A. Zelentsova

  3. Novosibirsk Regional Clinical Bureau of Forensic Medicine, Nemirovicha-Danchenko 134, Novosibirsk, Russia, 630087

    Ivan S. Kudryavtsev & Vladimir P. Novoselov

Authors
  1. Ekaterina A. Zelentsova
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  2. Lyudmila V. Yanshole
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  3. Arsenty D. Melnikov
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  4. Ivan S. Kudryavtsev
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  5. Vladimir P. Novoselov
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  6. Yuri P. Tsentalovich
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Contributions

IK and VN collected samples. EZ and YT conceived and designed research. EZ and LY conducted experiments. AM analyzed data. YP wrote the manuscript and supervised the research. All authors read and approved the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Yuri P. Tsentalovich.

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All authors declare that they do not have conflict of interest.

Ethical approval

All procedures of this study were subjected to the Declaration of Helsinki—ethical principles for medical research involving human subjects and with the ethical approval from International Tomography Center SB RAS (ECITC-2017-03).

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Zelentsova, E.A., Yanshole, L.V., Melnikov, A.D. et al. Post-mortem changes in metabolomic profiles of human serum, aqueous humor and vitreous humor. Metabolomics 16, 80 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11306-020-01700-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11306-020-01700-3

Keywords

  • PMI estimation
  • Quantitative metabolomics
  • Aqueous humor
  • Vitreous humor
  • Serum
  • NMR spectroscopy