title: Metabolic footprint of diabetes: a multiplatform metabolomics study in an epidemiological setting.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Metabolomics is the rapidly evolving field of the comprehensive measurement of ideally all endogenous metabolites in a biological fluid. However, no single analytic technique covers the entire spectrum of the human metabolome. Here we present results from a multiplatform study, in which we investigate what kind of results can presently be obtained in the field of diabetes research when combining metabolomics data collected on a complementary set of analytical platforms in the framework of an epidemiological study.
  
  
  RESULTS
  40 individuals with self-reported diabetes and 60 controls (male, over 54 years) were randomly selected from the participants of the population-based KORA (Cooperative Health Research in the Region of Augsburg) study, representing an extensively phenotyped sample of the general German population. Concentrations of over 420 unique small molecules were determined in overnight-fasting blood using three different techniques, covering nuclear magnetic resonance and tandem mass spectrometry. Known biomarkers of diabetes could be replicated by this multiple metabolomic platform approach, including sugar metabolites (1,5-anhydroglucoitol), ketone bodies (3-hydroxybutyrate), and branched chain amino acids. In some cases, diabetes-related medication can be detected (pioglitazone, salicylic acid).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our study depicts the promising potential of metabolomics in diabetes research by identification of a series of known and also novel, deregulated metabolites that associate with diabetes. Key observations include perturbations of metabolic pathways linked to kidney dysfunction (3-indoxyl sulfate), lipid metabolism (glycerophospholipids, free fatty acids), and interaction with the gut microflora (bile acids). Our study suggests that metabolic markers hold the potential to detect diabetes-related complications already under sub-clinical conditions in the general population.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Bioinformatics and Systems Biology, Helmholtz Zentrum München, German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany. karsten.suhre@helmholtz-muenchen.de
authors.forename: Karsten
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Suhre
authors.forename: Christa
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Meisinger
authors.forename: Angela
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Döring
authors.forename: Elisabeth
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Altmaier
authors.forename: Petra
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Belcredi
authors.forename: Christian
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Gieger
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Chang
authors.forename: Michael V
authors.initials: MV
authors.lastname: Milburn
authors.forename: Walter E
authors.initials: WE
authors.lastname: Gall
authors.forename: Klaus M
authors.initials: KM
authors.lastname: Weinberger
authors.forename: Hans-Werner
authors.initials: HW
authors.lastname: Mewes
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hrabé de Angelis
authors.forename: H-Erich
authors.initials: HE
authors.lastname: Wichmann
authors.forename: Florian
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Kronenberg
authors.forename: Jerzy
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Adamski
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Illig
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000596:Amino Acids / Q000378:metabolism; D016718:Arachidonic Acid / Q000378:metabolism; D050260:Carbohydrate Metabolism; D003924:Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2 / Q000097:blood / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000378:metabolism*; D005227:Fatty Acids / Q000378:metabolism; D005858:Germany / Q000453:epidemiology; D005947:Glucose / Q000378:metabolism; D006801:Humans; D007657:Ketone Bodies / Q000378:metabolism; D008297:Male; D055432:Metabolomics / Q000379:methods*; D008875:Middle Aged; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data
chemical_list: D000596:Amino Acids; D005227:Fatty Acids; D007657:Ketone Bodies; D016718:Arachidonic Acid; D005947:Glucose