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Metabolomic Study of Biochemical Changes in the Plasma and Urine of Primary Dysmenorrhea Patients Using UPLC–MS Coupled with a Pattern Recognition Approach
journal contribution
posted on 2016-02-20, 00:19 authored by Shulan Su, Jinao Duan, Peijuan Wang, Pei Liu, Jianming Guo, Erxin Shang, Dawei Qian, Yuping Tang, Zongxiang TangPrimary dysmenorrhea (PD) is characterized by painful
menstrual cramps without any organic pathology and has a prevalence
of up to 90% in adolescents. Recent advances in its etiology and pathogenesis
are providing more speculative hypotheses focused on integral systems.
Using a targeted tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS)-based metabolomic
platform, we explored the changes of metabolic profiling in plasma/urine
simultaneously between PD patients and healthy controls before and
after a 3-month herbal medicine (namely Shaofu Zhuyu formula concentrated-granule,
SFZYFG) therapy. To detect and identify potential biomarkers associated
with PD and SFZYFG treatment, we also performed a combined UPLC–QTOF-MS/MS-based
metabolomic profiling of the plasma/urine samples, indicating a further
deviation of the patients’ global metabolic profile from that
of controls. The total thirty-five metabolites (nineteen in plasma and sixteen in urine),
up-regulated or down-regulated (p < 0.05 or 0.01),
were identified and contributed to PD progress. These promising identified
biomarkers underpinning the metabolic pathway including sphingolipid
metabolism, steroid hormone biosynthesis, and glycerophospholipid
metabolism are disturbed in PD patients, which were identified by
using pathway analysis with MetPA. Twenty-four altered metabolites
and fourteen biochemical indicators were restored back to the control-like
level after the treatment of SFZYFG and could be potential biomarkers
for monitoring therapeutic efficacy. These findings may be promising
to yield a valuable insight into the pathophysiology of PD and to
advance the approaches of treatment, diagnosis, and prevention of
PD and related syndromes.