Title:Plasma Metabolic Profiling of Mild Cognitive Impairment and Alzheimer's Disease Using Liquid Chromatography/Mass Spectrometry
Volume: 14
Issue: 2
Author(s): Ying Liu, Naijing Li, Ling Zhou, Qing Li and Wei Li
Affiliation:
Keywords:
Alzheimer's disease, UPLC-MS, mild cognitive impairment, dementia.
Abstract: Objectives: Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the main cause of gradual cognitive impairment in
elderly individuals. This highlights the need of obtaining biomarkers to identify features that are different
among mild cognitive impairment (MCI), AD and cognitively normal (CN) individuals. Design and
methods: Ultra-performance liquid chromatography (UPLC)/mass spectrometry (MS) was employed to
find the metabolic changes in plasma samples obtained from AD, MCI and CN individuals. Based on
principal component analysis (PCA), the metabolic differences among AD, MCI and CN subjects were identified. Results:
The PCA of UPLC/MS spectra indicated metabolic differences among AD, MCI and CN subjects. The peak intensities of
progesterone, lysophos- phatidylcholines (LPCs), tryptophan, L-phenylalanine, dihydrosphingosine and phytosphingosine
in the plasma of the MCI and AD subjects were significantly different from the CN subjects. Furthermore, the peak
intensities of tryptophan, LPCs, dihydrosphingosine in the plasma of the AD subjects were significantly lower compared
to the MCI subjects. Conclusion: Our data provide a link between metabolite imbalance and AD, and suggest that
metabolomics can be used to reveal the early disease mechanisms occurred in the progression from CN to MCI and AD.