1. Introduction
2. Methods
2.1. Patients and Collection of Serum Samples
| Parameters | Control | Decompensated HCV-Cirrhosis |
|---|---|---|
| Age, y | 50 ± 2.0 | 56 ± 1.2 |
| Gender | ||
| Male | 14 | 17 |
| Female | 4 | 4 |
| ALT, U/L | 29.5 ± 4 | 81.4 ± 12.5 |
| AST, U/L | 23.1 ± 11.6 | 137.8 ± 53.9 |
| Total bilirubin, µmol/L | 16.9 ± 3.5 | 46.1 ± 10.7 |
| ALB, g/L | 45.8 ± 11.2 | 30 ± 15.7 |
| INR | 1.0 ± 0.08 | 1.4 ± 0.1 |
| TP, g/L | 69 ± 9.6 | 58 ± 4.5 |
| MELD score | - | 14.5 ± 6.5 |
Abbreviations: ALB, albumin; ALT, alanine aminotransferase; AST, aspartate aminotransferase; INR, international normalized ratio; MELD, Model for end stage liver disease; TP, total protein.
aValues are expressed as mean ± standard deviation.
2.2. 1H NMR Acquisition and Data Processing
2.3. NMR Statistical Analysis
2.4. Pathway Analysis
3. Results
3.1. Discrimination Between Decompensated HCV-Cirrhosis and Healthy Controls by NMR-Based Metabolic Profiling
A, PCA score plot with all variable unit variance scaled (healthy has been shown with triangle shape and circle with decompensated HCV-cirrhosis.); B, OPLS-DA Score plot of dcompensated HCV-cirrhosis group versus healthy control; (blue circle, patient, green circle, healthy); C, A 200 permutation test for OPLS-DA model healthy controls.
| No. | Metabolites | Direction of Variationa | δ1H, p.p.m.b | Fold Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Valine | ↓ | 0.99, 3.6 | 1.5 |
| 2 | Gutamine | ↓ | 2.09 | 1.5 |
| 3 | Trimethylamine | ↓ | 2.83 | 1.5 |
| 4 | Lactate | ↓ | 1.33 | 1.6 |
| 5 | Proline | ↓ | 2.05, 3.33 | 1.7 |
| 6 | Aspartate | ↓ | 2.81 | 1.8 |
| 7 | Citrulline | ↑ | 1.57 | 2.3 |
| 8 | Lipid | ↓ | 2.23, 0.93 | 2.1 |
| 9 | VLDL | ↓ | 1.57, 1.29 | 2.3 |
| 10 | Isoleucine | ↓ | 0.93 | 2.4 |
| 11 | Fucose | ↓ | 1.31 | 2.5 |
| 12 | Glutamate | ↓ | 2.03 | 1.5 |
| 13 | Iso- Valeraldehyde | ↑ | 0.95, 2.39, 9.65 | 2.2 |
| 14 | Propanal | ↑ | 2.55, 9.69 | 1.8 |
| 15 | Cinnamaldehyde | ↑ | 9.66, 9.67 | 1.9 |
| 16 | Succinic acid | ↑ | 2.39 | 1.9 |
aIncrease or decrease in decompensated HCV-cirrhosis compared to healthy controls.
bChemical shift of signal used for quantification.
3.2. Pathway Analyses
A, the metabolic pathways are represented as circles according to their scores from enrichment (vertical axis, shade of red) and topology analyses (Pathway impact, horizontal axis, and circle diameter). MetaboAnalyst 3.0 showed Aminoacyl-tRNA biosynthesis, alanine, aspartate and glutamate metabolism, arginine and proline metabolism as significant related pathways; B, statistics for pathways with major changes based on the P value and FDR (P value < 0.05 and FDR < 0.05).



