(1999). 'Metabonomics': understanding the metabolic responses of living systems to pathophysiological stimuli via multivariate statistical analysis of biological NMR spectroscopic data. Xenobiotica: Vol. 29, No. 11, pp. 1181-1189.

'metabonomics': understanding the metabolic responses of living systems to pathophysiological stimuli via multivariate statistical analysis of biological nmr spectroscopic data

The later that a molecule or molecular class is lost from the drug development pipeline, the higher the financial cost. Minimizing attrition is therefore one of the most important aims of a pharmaceutical discovery programme. Novel technologies that increase the probability of making the right choice early save resources, and promote safety, efficacy and profitability. Metabonomics is a systems approach for studying in vivo metabolic profiles, which promises to provide information on drug toxicity, disease processes and gene function at several stages in the discovery-and-development process.

Metabonomics: a platform for studying drug toxicity and gene function

Metabolic profiling, metabolomic and metabonomic studies mainly involve the multicomponent analysis of biological fluids, tissue and cell extracts using NMR spectroscopy and/or mass spectrometry (MS). We summarize the main NMR spectroscopic applications in modern metabolic research, and provide detailed protocols for biofluid (urine, serum/plasma) and tissue sample collection and preparation, including the extraction of polar and lipophilic metabolites from tissues. 1H NMR spectroscopic techniques such as standard 1D spectroscopy, relaxation-edited, diffusion-edited and 2D J-resolved pulse sequences are widely used at the analysis stage to monitor different groups of metabolites and are described here. They are often followed by more detailed statistical analysis or additional 2D NMR analysis for biomarker discovery. The standard acquisition time per sample is 4-5 min for a simple 1D spectrum, and both preparation and analysis can be automated to allow application to high-throughput screening for clinical diagnostic and toxicological studies, as well as molecular phenotyping and functional genomics.

Metabolic profiling, metabolomic and metabonomic procedures for NMR spectroscopy of urine, plasma, serum and tissue extracts.

https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc488175/m2/1/high_res_d/2003_phytochemistry_817.pdf

Plant metabolomics: large-scale phytochemistry in the functional genomics era

he promise of pharmacogenetics, the study of the role of in heritance in the individual variation in drug response, lies in its potential to identify the right drug and dose for each patient. Even though individual differences in drug response can result from the effects of age, sex, disease, or drug interactions, genetic factors also influence both the efficacy of a drug and the likelihood of an adverse reaction. 1-3 This article briefly reviews concepts that underlie the emerging fields of pharmacogenetics and pharmacogenomics, with an emphasis on the pharmacogenetics of drug metabolism. Although only a few examples will be provided to illustrate concepts and to demonstrate the potential contribution of pharmacogenetics to medical practice, it is now clear that virtually every pathway of drug metabolism will eventually be found to have genetic variation. The accompanying article by Evans and McLeod 4 expands on many of the themes introduced here. Once a drug is administered, it is absorbed and distributed to its site of action, where it interacts with targets (such as receptors and enzymes), undergoes metabolism, and is then excreted. 5,6 Each of these processes could potentially involve clinically significant genetic variation. However, pharmacogenetics originated as a result of the observation that there are clinically important inherited variations in drug metabolism. Therefore, this article — and the examples highlighted — focuses on the pharmacogenetics of drug metabolism. However, similar principles apply to clinically significant inherited variation in the transport and distribution of drugs and their interaction with their therapeutic targets. The underlying message is that inherited variations in drug effect are common and that some tests that incorporate pharmacogenetics into clinical practice are now available, with many more to follow. The concept of pharmacogenetics originated from the clinical observation that there were patients with very high or very low plasma or urinary drug concentrations, followed by the realization that the biochemical traits leading to this variation were inherited. Only later were the drug-metabolizing enzymes identified, and this discovery was followed by the identification of the genes that encoded the proteins and the DNA-sequence variation within the genes that was associated with the inherited trait. Most of the pharmacogenetic traits that were first identified were monogenic — that is, they involved only a single gene — and most were due to genetic polymorphisms; in other words, the allele or alleles responsible for the variation were relatively common. Although drug effect is a complex phenotype that depends on many factors, early and often dramatic examples involving succinylcholine and isoniazid facilitated acceptance of the fact that inheritance can have an important influence on the effect of a drug. Today there is a systematic search to identify functionally significant variations in DNA sequences in genes that influence the effects of various drugs. 4 t

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Inheritance and Drug Response

l. Taurine is a ubiquitous, free amino acid found in mammalian systems. 2. The biological functions of taurine are unclear. 3. Various in vivo data suggest that taurine has a variety of protective functions and deficiency leads to pathological changes. 4. Depletion in rats of taurine increases susceptibility to liver damage from carbon tetrachloride. 5. Susceptibility to a variety of hepatotoxicants correlates with the estimated hepatic taurine level. 6. In vitro data suggest that taurine can protect cells against toxic damage. 7. Taurine protects isolated bepatocytes against carbon tetrachloride, hydrazine and 1,4-naphtho- quinone but not against allyl alcohol, ct-naphthylisothiocyanate (ANIT) or diaminodiphenyl methane (DAPM) cytotoxicity. 8. The mechanisms of protection are unclear but may include modulation of calcium levels, osmo- regulation and membrane stabilization.

REVIEW The In Vivo and In Vitro Protective Properties of Taurine

Rats were injected intraperitoneally with HgCl2 at doses of 2.5, 5, 7.5, and 10 mumol of Hg/kg. Urine was collected over a 24-hr period. At this time, plasma samples were taken and kidney damage was assessed by histological examination. Urinary gamma-glutamyltransferase levels were significantly elevated at Hg2+ doses of 7.5 and 10 mumol/kg, consistent with the detection of acute tubular necrosis by light microscopy. Resonances for a large number of low molecular weight metabolites were assigned in high resolution 1H NMR spectra of rat urine. Spectra from small volumes of urine (about 0.5 ml) were obtained in less than 5 min with no pretreatment. Significant Hg2+ dose-related decreases in the excretion of creatinine and citrate and increases of glucose, glycine, alanine, alpha-ketoglutarate, succinate, and acetate were detected. Elevated levels of lactate and creatinine in plasma of rats receiving the two highest doses were found by 1H NMR. There was a good correspondence between the histopathology, enzyme excretion, and 1H NMR urinary metabolite fingerprints in the assessment of Hg2+-induced renal damage. 1H NMR provided a sensitive measure of mercury-induced nephrotoxic lesions, and information on the molecular basis of mercury cytotoxicity was derived from the abnormal patterns of metabolite excretion. These suggested that primary metabolic effects of mercury were upon mitochondrial metabolism, in particular inhibition of certain citric acid cycle enzymes leading to decreased utilization of alpha-ketoglutarate and succinate by the renal tubular cells. The decrease in urinary citrate associated with Hg2+ dosing was attributed to intracellular, tubular acidosis with concomitant enhanced citrate reabsorption. The acidosis was assumed to arise from a combination of the inhibition of tubular carbonic anhydrase and a mild metabolic lactic acidosis due to increased activity of anaerobic pathways in the kidney. The possible extension of the 1H NMR techniques to the investigation of the nephrotoxic potential of other compounds and drugs is discussed.

Proton NMR spectra of urine as indicators of renal damage: mercury-induced nephrotoxicity in rats

Acetaminophen and its glucuronide, sulfate, N-acetyl-L-cysteinyl, and L-cysteinyl metabolites can be rapidly detected by 1H NMR spectroscopy of intact, untreated human urine. Study of the time course of excretion of these metabolites in five clinically normal men after ingestion of the usual 1-g therapeutic dose of the drug showed that the mean 24-h excretion of the drug and these metabolites as determined by NMR was 77.3% of the dose. Respective relative proportions of the above metabolites were 49.9%, 37.6%, 3.0%, and 9.5% (L-cysteinyl plus free drug). Excretion of some other metabolites in urine, including creatinine, citrate, hippurate, and sarcosine was measured concurrently. Excretion of creatinine and sarcosine was closely correlated.

Urinary excretion of acetaminophen and its metabolites as studied by proton NMR spectroscopy.

Quantitative changes in the urinary excretion patterns of low molecular weight compounds were followed for up to 30 days after dosing of adult Sprague-Dawley rats with single intraperitoneal injections of CdCl2 (6-24 mumol/kg), using high resolution 1H NMR multicomponent urinalysis. There was a marked reduction in the rate of urinary excretion of citrate, 2-oxoglutarate, and succinate within 4.5 hr of the administration of 24 mumol/kg Cd2+. This continued for up to 4 days after dosing in male rats and was consistent with a renal tubular acidosis, caused by inhibition of carbonic anhydrase. Histological examination of the kidneys showed no evidence of structural abnormalities at any Cd2+ dose level. Creatinine excretion was not affected by Cd2+ treatment at any dose level but hippurate excretion was significantly reduced. Severe testicular damage was noted within 24 hr of Cd2+ treatment at doses of greater than 9 mumol/kg and the degree of damage appeared to be correlated with the presence of large amounts of creatine (up to 20 mM) in the urine. Analysis of homogenates of healthy testicular material indicated the presence of high concentrations of free creatine. Cadmium-induced creatinuria appears to result from direct release of creatine from the necrotic cells of the seminiferous tubules and, hence, the measurement of creatine excretion rates may provide a useful noninvasive indicator of testicular necrosis. Because NMR is nonselective in terms of metabolite detection, this work has shed new light on the changes in urinary composition arising from Cd toxicity. As such, the technique is potentially very valuable in the search for new metabolic markers of toxicity and organ dysfunction.

Quantitative high resolution 1H NMR urinalysis studies on the biochemical effects of cadmium in the rat.

The potent hepatotoxin, acetylhydrazine (monoacetylhydrazine), has been identified by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry as a urinary metabolite of isoniazid in man. Using a specific gas chromatographic assay procedure for acetylhydrazine, the urinary excretion of this metabolite in volunteers given a 300-mg dose of isoniazid was found to be 1.8 +/- 0.4% and 2.5 +/- 0.5% of the dose in the rapid and slow acetylators, respectively. In the same subjects the urinary excretion of diacetylhydrazine was significantly greater in the rapid acetylators, 23.0 +/- 2.0%, than in the slow acetylators, 4.9 +/- 0.9%. The results suggests that only part of the acetylhydrazine formed as a metabolite of isoniazid is excreted in the urine as acetylhydrazine and diacetylhydrazine and that a substantial proportion of the acetylhydrazine formed is further metabolized, possibly through the microsomal enzyme pathway known to be responsible for hepatotoxicity in experimental animals.

J. A. Timbrell

Papers

REVIEW The In Vivo and In Vitro Protective Properties of Taurine

Proton NMR spectra of urine as indicators of renal damage: mercury-induced nephrotoxicity in rats

Urinary excretion of acetaminophen and its metabolites as studied by proton NMR spectroscopy.

Quantitative high resolution 1H NMR urinalysis studies on the biochemical effects of cadmium in the rat.

Monoacetylhydrazine as a metabolite of isoniazid in man