Nutritional impact on the plasma metabolome of rats

Metabolite profiling (metabolomics) elucidates changes in biochemical pathways under various conditions, e.g., different nutrition scenarios or compound administration. BASF and metanomics have obtained plasma metabolic profiles of approximately 500 compounds (agrochemicals, chemicals and pharmaceuticals) from 28-day rat studies. With these profiles the establishment of a database (MetaMap(®)Tox) containing specific metabolic patterns associated with many toxicological modes of action was achieved. To evaluate confounding factors influencing metabolome patterns, the effect of fasting vs. non-fasting prior to blood sampling, the influence of high caloric diet and caloric restriction as well as the administration of corn oil and olive oil was studied for its influence on the metabolome. All mentioned treatments had distinct effects: triacylglycerol, phospholipids and their degradation product levels (fatty acids, glycerol, lysophosphatidylcholine) were often altered depending on the nutritional status. Also some amino acid and related compounds were changed. Some metabolites derived from food (e.g. alpha-tocopherol, ascorbic acid, beta-sitosterol, campesterol) were biomarkers related to food consumption, whereas others indicated a changed energy metabolism (e.g. hydroxybutyrate, pyruvate). Strikingly, there was a profound difference in the metabolite responses to diet restriction in male and female rats. Consequently, when evaluating the metabolic profile of a compound, the effect of nutritional status should be taken into account.