Characterization of small metabolites alteration in mice brain tissues after infected by rabies virus

Rabies, caused by rabies virus (RABV), is still one of the deadliest infectious diseases. Host metabolomic changes against RABV infection has not yet been fully understood. We performed untargeted metabolomics to discover the metabolites associated with RABV infection. The brain tissues from 20 RABV infected mice and 10 mock infected mice were used for this method. A total of 1352 differential metabolites were identified after the first-run screen, and the number reduced to 75 after second-run screen. Multivariate analysis using PLS-DA and OPLS-DA clearly discriminated the RABV infected samples from controls. Pathways enrichment analysis revealed that most differential metabolites were associated with metabolism of nucleotide and amino acid, and aminoacyl - tRNA biosynthesis and purine metabolism were the most active pathways. The findings presented in our study would promote the understanding of metabolomics changes in brains of mice after RABV infection as well as a new perspective to study the relationship between RABV and host.