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Intensive determination of storage condition effects on human plasma metabolomics

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Abstract

Introduction

Human plasma metabolomics offer powerful tools for understanding disease mechanisms and identifying clinical biomarkers for diagnosis, efficacy prediction and patient stratification. Although storage conditions can affect the reliability of data from metabolites, strict control of these conditions remains challenging, particularly when clinical samples are included from multiple centers. Therefore, it is necessary to consider stability profiles of each analyte.

Objectives

The purpose of this study was to extract unstable metabolites from vast metabolome data and identify factors that cause instability.

Method

Plasma samples were obtained from five healthy volunteers, were stored under ten different conditions of time and temperature and were quantified using leading-edge metabolomics. Instability was evaluated by comparing quantitation values under each storage condition with those obtained after −80 °C storage.

Result

Stability profiling of the 992 metabolites showed time- and temperature-dependent increases in numbers of significantly changed metabolites. This large volume of data enabled comparisons of unstable metabolites with their related molecules and allowed identification of causative factors, including compound-specific enzymatic activity in plasma and chemical reactivity. Furthermore, these analyses indicated extreme instability of 1-docosahexaenoylglycerol, 1-arachidonoylglycerophosphate, cystine, cysteine and N6-methyladenosine.

Conclusion

A large volume of data regarding storage stability was obtained. These data are a contribution to the discovery of biomarker candidates without misselection based on unreliable values and to the establishment of suitable handling procedures for targeted biomarker quantification.

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Abbreviations

BMI:

Body mass index

C3f:

Complement

EPA:

Eicosapentaenoic acid

FDR:

False discovery rate

GC/MS:

Gas chromatography/mass spectrometry

GluTrp:

Glutamyltryptophan

GPC:

Glycerophosphorylcholine

GPE:

Glycerophosphoethanolamine

LPC:

Lysophosphatidylcholine

LPE:

Lysophophatidylethanolamine

LPI:

Lysophosphatidylinositol

MAG:

Monoacylglycerol

RNase:

Ribonucleotidase

ROS:

Reactive oxygen species

PC:

Phosphorylcholine

PCA:

Principal component analysis

RT:

Room temperature

SOP:

Standard operation procedure

TAG:

Triacylglycerol

UHPLC/MS/MS:

Ultrahigh performance liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Integrated Technology Research Laboratories, Pharmaceutical Research Division, Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited, 26-1, Muraoka-Higashi 2-Chome, Fujisawa, Kanagawa, 251-8555, Japan

    Takeo Moriya, Yoshinori Satomi & Hiroyuki Kobayashi

Authors
  1. Takeo Moriya
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  2. Yoshinori Satomi
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  3. Hiroyuki Kobayashi
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Correspondence to Yoshinori Satomi.

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Conflict of interest

All authors ‘Takeo Moriya, Yoshinori Satomi and Hiroyuki Kobayashi’ declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the Institutional and/or National Research Committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Informed consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Moriya, T., Satomi, Y. & Kobayashi, H. Intensive determination of storage condition effects on human plasma metabolomics. Metabolomics 12, 179 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11306-016-1126-2

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