title: Urinary metabonomics for diagnosis of depression in hepatitis B virus-infected patients.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Depression is concomitantly presented in Hepatitis B Virus (HBV)-infected patients and decreases these patients' quality of life. However, there are no laboratory-based methods to objectively diagnose this disorder.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  The aim of this study was to investigate the alteration of urinary metabolites in depressed HBV-infected patients.
  
  
  METHODS
  In this study, 81 depressed HBV-infected patients, 68 non-depressed HBV-infected patients and 64 Healthy Controls (HC) were recruited. A nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR)-based urinary metabonomic method was used to characterize the urinary metabolic profiling of depressed and non-depressed subjects.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Seventeen differential urinary metabolites responsible for discriminating depressed HBV-infected patients from non-depressed HBV-infected patients and HC were identified. Among these metabolites, pyruvate, isobutyrate, N-methylnicotinamide, α-hydroxybutyrate, acetoacetate and malonate were identified as potential biomarkers for diagnosing depression in HBV-infected patients. A combined panel of these potential biomarkers could effectively discriminate depressed HBV-infected patients from non-depressed HBV-infected patients and HC, with an average accuracy of 89.6% in the training set and a predictive accuracy of 86.4% in the test set.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  These findings suggest that NMR-based urinary metabonomics approach might be a useful tool for the clinical diagnosis of depression in HBV-infected patients and the six potential biomarkers could be helpful for developing an objective diagnostic method. Limited by the number of recruited subjects, future studies are required to validate our conclusions.
authors.affiliation: Department of Infectious Diseases, The First Affiliated Hospital of Xinxiang Medical University, Xinxiang, China.
authors.forename: Li-Juan
authors.initials: LJ
authors.lastname: Hou
authors.affiliation: Department of Infectious Diseases, The First Affiliated Hospital of Xinxiang Medical University, Xinxiang, China.
authors.forename: Hong-Wei
authors.initials: HW
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Department of Infectious Diseases, The First Affiliated Hospital of Xinxiang Medical University, Xinxiang, China.
authors.forename: Xiao-Xia
authors.initials: XX
authors.lastname: Wei
authors.affiliation: Department of Infectious Diseases, The First Affiliated Hospital of Xinxiang Medical University, Xinxiang, China.
authors.forename: Shu-Peng
authors.initials: SP
authors.lastname: Duan
authors.affiliation: Department of Infectious Diseases, The First Affiliated Hospital of Xinxiang Medical University, Xinxiang, China.
authors.forename: Ya
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhuo
authors.affiliation: Department of Infectious Diseases, The First Affiliated Hospital of Xinxiang Medical University, Xinxiang, China.
authors.forename: Xin-Wen
authors.initials: XW
authors.lastname: Song
authors.affiliation: Department of Infectious Diseases, The First Affiliated Hospital of Xinxiang Medical University, Xinxiang, China.
authors.forename: Bao-Sheng
authors.initials: BS
authors.lastname: Shen
keywords: Depression; Hepatitis B; Metabonomic