1. Academic Validation
  2. Metabolic profiling of serum from dogs with pituitary-dependent hyperadrenocorticism

Metabolic profiling of serum from dogs with pituitary-dependent hyperadrenocorticism

  • Res Vet Sci. 2021 Sep;138:161-166. doi: 10.1016/j.rvsc.2021.06.011.
Alberto Muñoz-Prieto 1 Ivana Rubić 1 Anita Horvatic 2 Renata Baric Rafaj 3 José Joaquín Cerón 4 Asta Tvarijonaviciute 5 Vladimir Mrljak 1
Affiliations

Affiliations

  • 1 Clinic for Internal Diseases, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Zagreb, Heinzelova 55, Zagreb 10000, Croatia.
  • 2 Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Faculty of Food Technology and Biotechnology, University of Zagreb, Pierottijeva 6, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia.
  • 3 Department for Chemistry and Biochemistry, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Zagreb, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia.
  • 4 Interlab-UMU, Regional Campus of International Excellence "Mare Nostrum", University of Murcia, Murcia 30100, Spain.
  • 5 Interlab-UMU, Regional Campus of International Excellence "Mare Nostrum", University of Murcia, Murcia 30100, Spain. Electronic address: asta@um.es.
Abstract

Hyperadrenocorticism (HAC) is one of the most common Endocrine diseases in dogs characterized by excessive cortisol production caused by an adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH)-secreting tumor, namely pituitary-dependent HAC (PDH) or cortisol-secreting adrenal tumor. Metabolomics presents the ability to identify small molecule metabolites. Thus, the use of metabolomics techniques in canine PDH can provide information about the pathophysiology and metabolic changes in this disease. This study aimed to identify and compare differences in serum metabolites between dogs with PDH and healthy dogs. The metabolomic profile of 20 dogs diagnosed with PDH was compared with 20 healthy dogs using liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry (LC/MS), and metabolite discrimination was performed using partial least squares-discriminant analysis (PLS-DA), the variable important in projection (VIP) and fold changes (FC) group-wise comparisons. The hypergeometric test identified the significantly altered pathways. A total of 21 metabolites were found to be significantly different between the two groups. The major alterations were found in arachidonic and decanoic acid, and Phospholipids related to phosphatidylcholine (PC), phosphatidylethanolamine (PE) and phosphatidylinositol (PI). These metabolites are related to Insulin resistance and other complications (i.e. hypertension). Our results indicate that PDH produces changes in serum metabolites of dogs, and the knowledge of these changes can aid to better understanding of pathophysiological processes involved and contribute to potentially detect new biomarkers for this disease.

Keywords

Biomarkers; Canine; LC/MS; Metabolomics; Pituitary-dependent hyperadrenocorticism; Serum.

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