Prediction of classical clinical chemistry parameters using a direct infusion mass spectrometry

• The capacity of blood plasma metabolome to be used for diagnostics was investigated.
• Various diagnostic substances of blood were estimated from plasma metabolome.
• Analysis of blood plasma metabolome may be considered as a diagnostic tool.

Recent decades have been marked by advances in omics sciences based on high-throughput technologies, which have enabled the measurement of enormous numbers of molecules in biosamples. This study investigated the capacity of blood plasma metabolome to be used for diagnostics. Blood plasma samples (n = 120) were methanol-treated to remove proteins. The remaining metabolite fractions were directly analyzed by mass spectrometry. Various diagnostic substances with different molecular weights, chemical classes, and plasma abundances were directly estimated from mass spectra or predicted from mass spectra by neural networking. Predicted levels of these substances were correlated (r = 0.51–0.78) with their actual values. Blood plasma metabolomics may be considered as a diagnostic tool capable of substituting for several clinical laboratory tests.

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