Biomarker discovery in NAFLD: insights from metabolomics and vote counting meta-analysis

Despite its prevalence and the significance of early diagnosis, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), one of the most prevalent liver diseases globally and frequently linked to elements of metabolic syndrome, lacks robustly validated biomarkers for diagnosis, prognosis, and tracking of disease progression in response to a particular treatment.

The aim of this study was to catalogue the metabolites from metabolomics data reported by different studies till date, and to find few majorly dysregulated metabolites that can potentially be used as progressive biomarkers of NAFLD in future.

The clinical data published during last 13 years was investigated and further curated from established databases of MEDLINE, EMBASE and PUBMED on NAFLD. A vote-counting method was used to perform a semi-quantitative meta-analysis of metabolites in serum/blood from NAFLD subjects.

This analysis unveiled the well-unprecedented changes in the metabolites of different classes as amino acids Valine, isoleucine, glutamate, tyrosine, alpha-ketoglutarate and phenylalanine were found to be up-regulated whereas glycine, serine and arginine were observed to be down-regulated. This investigation envisaged role of a few metabolites which were significantly distinct in the progression of NAFLD condition.

This study highlighted the role of different metabolites in the progression of NAFLD condition. However, the analysis also reveals certain limitations requiring better standardization of metabolomics investigations, signifying errors and lacunas of metabolic databases in identification and reporting. Additionally, inadequate publicly accessible metabolomics data, limits the discovery potential of meta-analyses of clinical studies.