Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry Based on Metabonomics Study of Carbon Tetrachloride-Induced Acute Liver Injury in Mice

A gas chromatography-mass spectrometry based on methodology was developed to investigate the distinctions of metabolic profiles in liver tissues and plasma of mice with different time post-dose after CCl4 treatment. NIST mass spectral library was used for the rapid identification of endogenous metabolites, and the principal component analysis was introduced for the pattern recognition of mice metabonome. The pattern recognition result presented clear changing tendencies of metabolite profiles at various time postdose, both in liver tissues and plasma. The elevated levels of malate and several fatty acids in liver tissues as well as the increased concentrations of some amino acids and citrate in plasma were detected as metabolic effects of CCl4 induced liver injury. Changing tendencies of the metabolite profiles and several metabolites were conformed to the histopathological assessment of the liver tissues. The results suggested that the GC-MS based method can provide some advantages in metabolite profiling and compound identification, and therefore can be employed as a potential powerful approach in metabonomics research as a complement of NMR.