Abstract

Introduction: Epilepsy is one of the most common neurological diseases in clinical practice. The combined application of metabolomics technology plays a great advantage in the screening of biomarkers.

Methods: In this study, Wistar rats were used as experimental subjects to model intractable epilepsy and to detect the metabolic changes of small molecules in plasma. UPLC-MS/MS was used to determine the small molecules in rat plasma. UPLC HSS C18 (2.1mm×100mm, 1.7 μm) column was used for separation, column temperature of 40°C. The initial mobile phase was acetonitrile -0.3% formic acid with gradient elution, the flow rate was 0.3 mL/min, total running time 4.0 min. Quantitative analysis was performed with multi-response monitoring (MRM).

Results: Compared to the control group, the L-Alanine and L-Arginine decreased in the Epilepsy group (p<0.05); while Cytosine, Adenosine, L-Tyrosine, Citric acid, Fructose increased (p<0.05).

Conclusion: In the screening of epilepsy biomarkers using metabolomics, various amino acids that lead to increased energy production and neurotransmitter imbalance play an important role in epileptic seizures.

Keywords: Epilepsy, plasma, UPLC-MS/MS, amino acid, rat, metabolomics.