title: The cyanobacterial amino acid β-N-methylamino-l-alanine perturbs the intermediary metabolism in neonatal rats.
abstract: The neurotoxic amino acid β-N-methylamino-l-alanine (BMAA) is produced by most cyanobacteria. BMAA is considered as a potential health threat because of its putative role in neurodegenerative diseases. We have previously observed cognitive disturbances and morphological brain changes in adult rodents exposed to BMAA during the development. The aim of this study was to characterize changes of major intermediary metabolites in serum following neonatal exposure to BMAA using a non-targeted metabolomic approach. NMR spectroscopy was used to obtain serum metabolic profiles from neonatal rats exposed to BMAA (40, 150, 460mg/kg) or vehicle on postnatal days 9-10. Multivariate data analysis of binned NMR data indicated metabolic pattern differences between the different treatment groups. In particular five metabolites, d-glucose, lactate, 3-hydroxybutyrate, creatine and acetate, were changed in serum of BMAA-treated neonatal rats. These metabolites are associated with changes in energy metabolism and amino acid metabolism. Further statistical analysis disclosed that all the identified serum metabolites in the lowest dose group were significantly (p<0.05) decreased. The neonatal rat model used in this study is so far the only animal model that displays significant biochemical and behavioral effects after a low short-term dose of BMAA. The demonstrated perturbation of intermediary metabolism may contribute to BMAA-induced developmental changes that result in long-term effects on adult brain function.
authors.affiliation: Division of Analytical Pharmaceutical Chemistry, Uppsala University, Box 574, SE-751 23 Uppsala, Sweden. Electronic address: mikael.engskog@farmkemi.uu.se.
authors.forename: Mikael K R
authors.initials: MK
authors.lastname: Engskog
authors.forename: Oskar
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Karlsson
authors.forename: Jakob
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Haglöf
authors.forename: Albert
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Elmsjö
authors.forename: Eva
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Brittebo
authors.forename: Torbjörn
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Arvidsson
authors.forename: Curt
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Pettersson
mesh_terms: D000596:Amino Acids / Q000378:metabolism; D000599:Amino Acids, Diamino / Q000633:toxicity*; D000818:Animals; D000831:Animals, Newborn; D001921:Brain / Q000187:drug effects* / Q000378:metabolism / Q000473:pathology; D000087522:Cyanobacteria Toxins; D004734:Energy Metabolism / Q000187:drug effects; D018690:Excitatory Amino Acid Agonists / Q000633:toxicity*; D009682:Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy; D051381:Rats; D017208:Rats, Wistar
chemical_list: D000596:Amino Acids; D000599:Amino Acids, Diamino; D000087522:Cyanobacteria Toxins; D018690:Excitatory Amino Acid Agonists; C001824:beta-N-methylamino-L-alanine
keywords: ALS/PDC; Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis/Parkinsonism-dementia complex; BMAA; Cyanobacteria; Energy metabolism; HSQC; Metabolomics; NMR; Neurotoxin; OPLS-DA; PCA; PND; orthogonal projections to latent structures discriminant analysis; postnatal day; principal component analysis; two-dimensional heteronuclear single quantum coherence spectroscopy; β-N-methylamino-l-alanine