Dysregulation of metabolic pathways in a mouse model of allergic asthma.

BACKGROUND: Asthma is a complex lung disease resulting from the interplay of genetic and environmental factors. To understand the molecular changes that occur during the development of allergic asthma without genetic and environmental confounders, an experimental model of allergic asthma in mice was used. Our goals were to (1) identify changes at the small molecule level due to allergen exposure, (2) determine perturbed pathways due to disease, and (3) determine whether small molecule changes correlate with lung function. METHODS: In this experimental model of allergic asthma, matched bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) fluid and plasma were collected from three groups of C57BL6 mice (control vs sensitized and/or challenged with ovalbumin, n=3-5/group) 6 hour, 24 hour, and 48 hour after the last challenge. Samples were analyzed using liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry-based metabolomics. Airway hyper-responsiveness (AHR) measurements and differential cell counts were performed. RESULTS: In total, 398 and 368 dysregulated metabolites in the BAL fluid and plasma of sensitized and challenged mice were identified, respectively. These belonged to four, interconnected pathways relevant to asthma pathogenesis: sphingolipid metabolism (P=6.6×10-5 ), arginine and proline metabolism (P=1.12×10-7 ), glycerophospholipid metabolism (P=1.3×10-10 ), and the neurotrophin signaling pathway (P=7.0×10-6 ). Furthermore, within the arginine and proline metabolism pathway, a positive correlation between urea-1-carboxylate and AHR was observed in plasma metabolites, while ornithine revealed a reciprocal effect. In addition, agmatine positively correlated with lung eosinophilia. CONCLUSION: These findings point to potential targets and pathways that may be central to asthma pathogenesis and can serve as novel therapeutic targets.

A high performance liquid chromatographic post-column fluorescent ion pair extraction system: application to physostigmine and its metabolite eseroline in human serum.

A high performance liquid chromatographic post-column fluorescent ion pair extraction system was developed for the analysis of quaternary ammonium and amine drugs in serum. A new fluorescent ion pair reagent, sodium alpha-(3,4-dimethoxyphenyl) cinnamonitrile-2'-sulfonate (DPS), was synthesized and characterized. The post-column extraction system consisted of a three-dimensional knitted teflon mixing coil and a membrane phase separator which was modified from an original literature design. Physostigmine and its metabolite eseroline were used as model cations. A solid phase extraction procedure using octadecylsilane columns was developed to extract the compounds and neostigmine bromide (internal standard) from human serum. The compounds were chromatographed on a diol column using a 80:20 aqueous phosphate buffer pH 4 absolute methanol mobile phase at a flow rate of 1 mL/min. Methylene chloride was used as the on-line extraction solvent for the DPS ion pairs formed. Fluorescence of the extracted ion pairs was measured using an excitation of 243 nm and an emission cut-off filter at 418 nm. Linearity was in the 2-100 ng/mL and 5-100 ng/mL ranges for physostigmine and eseroline, respectively. Detection limits based on a signal-to-noise ratio of 2, were 2 and 5 ng/mL, respectively. Precision of the method was found to be in the 1.5-3% range and percentage error in the 1.5-7% range for both compounds.