Serum UPLC-MS/MS metabolic profiling in an experimental model for acute-liver injury reveals potential biomarkers for hepatotoxicity

A key interest in clinical diagnosis and pharmaceutical industry is to have a repertoire of noninvasive biomarkers to-individually or in combination-be able to infer or predict the degree of liver injury caused by pathological conditions or drugs. Metabolomics-a comprehensive study of global metabolites-has become a highly sensitive and powerful tool for biomarker discovery thanks to recent technological advances. An ultra-performance liquid chromatography/time-of-flight tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC/TOF MS/MS)-based metabolomics approach was employed to investigate sera from galactosamine-treated rats to find potential biomarkers for acute liver injury. Hepatic damage was quantified by determining serum transaminase activity and in situ liver histological lesions. Principal component analysis in combination with coefficient of correlation analysis was used for biomarker selection and identification. According to the data, serum levels of several metabolites including glucose, amino acids, and membrane lipids were significantly modified, some of them showing a high correlation with the degree of liver damage determined by histological examination of the livers. In conclusion, this study supports that UPLC-MS/MS based serum metabolomics in experimental animal models could be a powerful approach to search for biomarkers for drug- or disease-induced liver injury.