title: Reconstruction and analysis of correlation networks based on GC-MS metabolomics data for young hypertensive men.
abstract: The awareness, treatment, and control rates of hypertension for young adults are much lower than average. It is urgently needed to explore the variances of metabolic profiles for early diagnosis and treatment of hypertension. In current study, we applied a GC-MS based metabolomics platform coupled with a network approach to analyze plasma samples from young hypertensive men and age-matched healthy controls. Our findings confirmed distinct metabolic footprints of young hypertensive men. The significantly altered metabolites between two groups were enriched for the biological module of amino acids biosynthesis. The correlations of GC-MS metabolomics data were then visualized as networks based on Pearson correlation coefficient (threshold=0.6). The plasma metabolites identified by GC-MS and the significantly altered metabolites (P<0.05) between patients and controls were respectively included as nodes of a network. Statistical and topological characteristics of the networks were studied in detail. A few amino acids, glycine, lysine, and cystine, were screened as hub metabolites with higher values of degree (k), and also obtained highest scores of three centrality indices. The short average path lengths and high clustering coefficients of the networks revealed a small-world property, indicating that variances of these amino acids have a major impact on the metabolic change in young hypertensive men. These results suggested that disorders of amino acid metabolism might play an important role in predisposing young men to developing hypertension. The combination of metabolomics and network methods would provide another perspective on expounding the molecular mechanism underlying complex diseases.
authors.affiliation: The Key Laboratory of Biomedical Information Engineering of Ministry of Education, School of Life Science and Technology, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, China.
authors.forename: Le
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: The Key Laboratory of Biomedical Information Engineering of Ministry of Education, School of Life Science and Technology, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, China.
authors.forename: Entai
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Hou
authors.affiliation: Department of Respiration, Xi'an Children's Hospital, Xi'an 710003, China.
authors.forename: Lijun
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Department of Emergency, Xijing Hospital, Fourth Military Medical University, Xi'an 710032, China.
authors.forename: Yanjun
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Resource Biology and Biotechnology in Western China, Ministry of Education, College of Life Sciences, Northwest University, Xi'an 710069, China.
authors.forename: Lingjian
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Resource Biology and Biotechnology in Western China, Ministry of Education, College of Life Sciences, Northwest University, Xi'an 710069, China.
authors.forename: Xiaohui
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zheng
authors.affiliation: The Key Laboratory of Biomedical Information Engineering of Ministry of Education, School of Life Science and Technology, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, China.
authors.forename: Guangqi
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Xie
authors.affiliation: The Key Laboratory of Biomedical Information Engineering of Ministry of Education, School of Life Science and Technology, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, China.
authors.forename: Qiong
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.affiliation: Department of Physiology, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI 53226, United States.
authors.forename: Mingyu
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Liang
authors.affiliation: The Key Laboratory of Biomedical Information Engineering of Ministry of Education, School of Life Science and Technology, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, China. Electronic address: zmtian@mail.xjtu.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Zhongmin
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Tian
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000596:Amino Acids / Q000378:metabolism; D008401:Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D006973:Hypertension / Q000378:metabolism*; D008297:Male; D055432:Metabolomics; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D000596:Amino Acids
keywords: Centrality indices; Correlation network; GC–MS; Hub metabolites; Hypertension; Metabolomics