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Published on: February 12, 2015
Metabolic Pathways and Networks Associated With Tobacco Use in Military Personnel
Dean P Jones1, Douglas I Walker, Karan Uppal
1Clinical Biomarkers Laboratory, Division of Pulmonary, Allergy, and Critical Care Medicine, Emory School of Medicine, Atlanta, Georgia (Dr Jones, Mr Walker, Drs Uppal, Go); Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts (Mr Walker); 779th Aerospace Medicine Squadron, 79th Medical Wing, Joint Base Andrews (Dr Rohrbeck); and Professor, Department of Preventive Medicine and Biostatistics, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, 4301 Jones Bridge Road, Bethesda, MD 20814 (Dr Mallon).
Objective:
The aim of this study is to use high-resolution metabolomics (HRM) to identify metabolic pathways and networks associated with tobacco use in military personnel.
Methods:
Four hundred deidentified samples obtained from the Department of Defense Serum Repository were classified as tobacco users or nonusers according to cotinine content. HRM and bioinformatic methods were used to determine pathways and networks associated with classification.
Results:
Eighty individuals were classified as tobacco users compared with 320 nonusers on the basis of cotinine levels at least 10 ng/mL. Alterations in lipid and xenobiotic metabolism, and diverse effects on amino acid, sialic acid, and purine and pyrimidine metabolism were observed. Importantly, network analysis showed broad effects on metabolic associations not simply linked to well-defined pathways.
Conclusions:
Tobacco use has complex metabolic effects that must be considered in evaluation of deployment-associated environmental exposures in military personnel.
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