Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599, USA.
Center for Environmental Medicine, Asthma and Lung Biology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599, USA.
J Expo Sci Environ Epidemiol. 2022 Nov;32(6):847-854. doi: 10.1038/s41370-022-00448-3. Epub 2022 Jun 24.
The nasal mucosa, as a primary site of entry for inhaled substances, contains both inhaled xenobiotic and endogenous biomarkers. Nasal mucosa can be non-invasively sampled (nasal epithelial lining fluid "NELF") and analyzed for biological mediators. However, methods for untargeted analysis of compounds inhaled and/or retained in the nasal mucosa are needed.
This study aimed to develop a high resolution LC-MS untargeted method to analyze collected NELF. Profiling of compounds in NELF samples will also provide baseline data for future comparative studies to reference.
Extracted NELF analytes were injected to LC-ESI-MS. After spectrum processing, an in-house library provided annotations with high confidence, while more tentative annotation proposals were obtained via ChemSpider database matching.
The established method successfully detected unique molecular signatures within NELF. Baseline profiling of 27 samples detected 2002 unknown molecules, with 77 and 463 proposed structures by our in-house library and Chemspider matching. High confidence annotations revealed common metabolites and tentative annotations implied various environmental exposure biomarkers are also present in NELF.
The experimental pipeline for analyzing NELF samples serves as simple and robust method applicable for future studies to characterize identities/effects of inhaled substances and metabolites retained in the nasal mucosa.
The nasal mucosa contains exogenous and endogenous compounds. The development of an untargeted analysis is necessary to characterize the nasal exposome by deciphering the identity and influence of inhaled compounds on nasal mucosal biology. This study established a high resolution LC-MS based untargeted analysis of non-invasively collected nasal epithelial lining fluid. Baseline profiling of the nasal mucosa (n = 27) suggests the presence of environmental pollutants, along with detection of endogenous metabolites. Our results show high potential for the analytical pipeline to facilitate future respiratory health studies involving inhaled pollutants or pharmaceutical compounds and their effects on respiratory biology.
鼻腔黏膜作为吸入物质的主要进入部位，同时含有吸入性外源性物质和内源性生物标志物。鼻腔黏膜可进行非侵入性采样（鼻上皮衬里液“NELF”）并进行生物介质分析。然而，需要开发针对吸入和/或保留在鼻腔黏膜中的化合物进行非靶向分析的方法。
本研究旨在开发高分辨 LC-MS 非靶向方法来分析采集的 NELF。对 NELF 样本中化合物的分析也将为未来的比较研究提供基线数据参考。
将提取的 NELF 分析物注入 LC-ESI-MS。经过光谱处理，内部库可提供高置信度注释，而通过 ChemSpider 数据库匹配则可获得更多暂定注释建议。
所建立的方法成功地在 NELF 中检测到了独特的分子特征。对 27 个样本的基线分析检测到了 2002 种未知分子，其中 77 种和 463 种结构由内部库和 Chemspider 匹配提出。高置信度注释显示了常见的代谢物，而暂定注释则表明 NELF 中还存在各种环境暴露生物标志物。
分析 NELF 样本的实验流程提供了一种简单而强大的方法，适用于未来研究以表征吸入物质和保留在鼻腔黏膜中的代谢物的身份/影响。
鼻腔黏膜含有外源性和内源性化合物。为了通过解析吸入化合物对鼻腔黏膜生物学的影响来描绘鼻腔暴露组，有必要开发一种非靶向分析方法。本研究建立了一种基于高分辨 LC-MS 的非侵入性收集鼻上皮衬里液的非靶向分析方法。对 27 例鼻腔黏膜的基线分析表明存在环境污染物，同时还检测到内源性代谢物。我们的结果表明，该分析方法具有很大的潜力，可以促进未来涉及吸入污染物或药物化合物及其对呼吸生物学影响的呼吸健康研究。
