Urine Metabolites as Biomarkers and Metabolism Mechanism Studies of Alcohol-Associated Liver Disease
Background/Aims: We explored the possibility of using urine polar metabolites as non-invasive biomarkers of alcohol-associated liver disease (ALD) for early-stage diagnosis and severity assessment, as well as the possible changes in metabolic pathways in ALD patients. Methods: Polar metabolites were...
Saved in:
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
MDPI AG
2025-06-01
|
| Series: | International Journal of Translational Medicine |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/2673-8937/5/2/21 |
| Tags: |
Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
|
| Summary: | Background/Aims: We explored the possibility of using urine polar metabolites as non-invasive biomarkers of alcohol-associated liver disease (ALD) for early-stage diagnosis and severity assessment, as well as the possible changes in metabolic pathways in ALD patients. Methods: Polar metabolites were extracted with 80% methanol, and parallel 2DLC-MS was used for polar metabolite quantification. Results: Data from untargeted metabolomics showed that 194 metabolites were significantly changed in patients, and three metabolites can differentiate healthy controls (HC), non-severe ALD, and severe alcohol-associated hepatitis (severe AH) with high accuracy (0.92–0.97). Pathway analysis showed that arginine biosynthesis and histidine metabolism pathways were among the pathways containing the metabolites that were most altered in the urine of patients. Metabolites in the urea cycle, histidine catabolism, and histidine dipeptides pathways were notably increased in the urine of ALD patients, but none of the metabolites in these two pathways can simultaneously differentiate patients from healthy volunteers and non-severe ALD from severe AH. As the top differentiated pathways, the alterations of arginine biosynthesis and histidine metabolism indicate their importance in the metabolic dysfunction of ALD. Conclusions: Our results show that the abundance changes of specific metabolites can differentiate the disease severity of ALD, showing the potential of urine polar metabolites as non-invasive biomarkers for early-stage diagnosis and disease severity assessment of ALD. |
|---|---|
| ISSN: | 2673-8937 |