Department of Biotechnology, Chemistry and Pharmacy, University of Siena, Italy.
Medical Oncology Unit, Careggi University Hospital, Florence, Italy.
Anal Biochem. 2022 Oct 1;654:114826. doi: 10.1016/j.ab.2022.114826. Epub 2022 Jul 21.
NMR metabolomics has inherent capabilities for studying biofluids, such as reproducibility, minimal sample preparation, non-destructiveness, and molecular structure elucidation; however, reliable quantitation of metabolites is still a challenge because of the complex matrix of the samples. The serum is one of the most common samples in clinical studies but possibly the most difficult for NMR analysis because of the high content of proteins, which hampers the detection and quantification of metabolites. Different processes for protein removal, such as ultrafiltration and precipitation, have been proposed, but require sample manipulation, increase time and cost, and possibly lead to loss of information in the metabolic profile. Alternative methods that rely on filtering protein signals by NMR pulse sequencing are commonly used, but standardisation of acquisition parameters and spectra calibration is far from being reached. The present technical note is a critical assessment of the sparsely suggested calibrants, pulse sequences and acquisition parameters toward an optimised combination of the three for accurate and reproducible quantification of metabolites in intact serum.
NMR 代谢组学在研究生物体液方面具有内在的能力,例如可重复性、最小的样品制备、非破坏性和分子结构阐明;然而,由于样品的复杂基质,可靠地定量代谢物仍然是一个挑战。血清是临床研究中最常见的样本之一,但由于蛋白质含量高,对 NMR 分析来说可能是最困难的,因为这会阻碍代谢物的检测和定量。已经提出了不同的蛋白质去除过程,如超滤和沉淀,但需要样品处理,增加时间和成本,并可能导致代谢谱中的信息丢失。常用的替代方法是通过 NMR 脉冲序列过滤蛋白质信号,但获取参数和光谱校准的标准化还远远没有达到。本技术说明是对稀疏建议的校准物、脉冲序列和采集参数的批判性评估,目的是优化这三者的组合,以实现对完整血清中代谢物的准确和可重复的定量。