Institute of Food Science, CNR, Avellino, Italy.
Leibniz Institute for Prevention Research and Epidemiology - BIPS, Bremen, Germany.
Sci Rep. 2017 Nov 15;7(1):15636. doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-15957-7.
Accumulating evidence shows that urinary volatile organic compounds (VOCs) could be perturbed in many physiological and pathological states, including several diseases and different dietary exposures. Few studies investigated the urinary metabolic signature associated to excess body weight and obesity in adult populations, while a different VOCs profile was found in exhaled breath in obese as compared to lean children. Aim of this study was to evaluate the VOCs profile in the urine of 21 overweight/obese (OW/Ob) and 28 normal-weight (NW) children belonging to the Italian cohort of the I. Family study. Urine samples were analysed by Solid Phase Micro-Extraction (SPME) GC-MS under both acidic and alkaline conditions, in order to profile a wider range of urinary volatiles with different physicochemical properties. Multivariate statistics techniques were applied to bioanalytical data to visualize clusters of cases and detect the VOCs able to differentiate OW/Ob from NW children. Under alkaline conditions, fourteen VOCs were identified, distinguishing OW/Ob from NW children. Our results suggest that VOCs signatures differ between OW/Ob and NW children. However, the biological and pathophysiological meaning of the observed differences needs to be elucidated, in order to better understand the potential of urinary VOCs as early metabolic biomarkers of obesity.
越来越多的证据表明，尿液中的挥发性有机化合物（VOCs）在许多生理和病理状态下都会发生变化，包括许多疾病和不同的饮食暴露。很少有研究调查与成年人超重和肥胖相关的尿液代谢特征，而肥胖儿童的呼气中发现了不同的 VOCs 谱。本研究旨在评估意大利 I. 家族研究队列中 21 名超重/肥胖（OW/Ob）和 28 名正常体重（NW）儿童尿液中的 VOCs 谱。尿液样本通过固相微萃取（SPME）GC-MS 在酸性和碱性条件下进行分析，以分析具有不同物理化学性质的更广泛范围的尿液挥发物。多变量统计技术应用于生物分析数据，以可视化病例聚类并检测能够区分 OW/Ob 和 NW 儿童的 VOCs。在碱性条件下，鉴定出 14 种 VOCs，可将 OW/Ob 与 NW 儿童区分开来。我们的结果表明，OW/Ob 和 NW 儿童之间的 VOCs 特征存在差异。然而，需要阐明观察到的差异的生物学和病理生理学意义，以便更好地了解尿液 VOCs 作为肥胖早期代谢生物标志物的潜力。
