engleski

Metabolomics in PTSD: Introduction and preliminary findings

Introduction: Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a severe mental disorder that develops after experiencing or witnessing traumatic or terrifying event. The exact biological factors, that contribute to vulnerability or resilience for developing PTSD after traumatic exposure, are still not well understood. Metabolomics is a new fast developing scientific discipline which allows us to study the final products of all biochemical pathways driven by genetic regulation and influenced by the environment. In the case of PTSD, one of the most important goals nowadays is to identify reliable, peripheral, non-invasive and easily accessible biomarkers that will potentiate the development of new diagnostic tests in order to early recognize, better diagnose, treat or even prevent possible development of PTSD. In metabolomics, usually this type of study starts with untargeted and non-hypothesis driven approach. Materials and methods: The aim of this study was to apply LC-MS and GC-MS based untargeted metabolomics approach to investigate a metabolic profile of patients with combat related PTSD, collected within the project „GlycoGenPTSD” supported by Croatian Science Foundation (IP-2014-09-4289). Study included plasma samples from PTSD patients (N=50) and matching controls (N=50). Results: After appropriate statistical analysis, a trend of increased levels of different types of glycerophospholipids and decreased levels of different types of carnitines and bile acids was found in PTSD subjects when compared to healthy controls. Conclusions: This preliminary study proposes metabolomics as a promising novel approach for a better understanding of PTSD etiology, but further research has to be carried out to validate current results.

Posttraumatic stress disorder ; metabolomics ; metabolic profile ; glycerophospholipids ; carnitines ; bile acids

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