Metabonomic study of biochemical changes in the serum of type 2 diabetes mellitus patients after the treatment of metformin hydrochloride

A metabonomic study on biochemical changes in the serum of type 2 diabetes mellitus patients after the treatment of metformin hydrochloride was performed. 1H NMR and UPLC/MS were used to generate metabolic fingerprints for the metabonomic analysis of serum samples obtained from 20 type 2 diabetes mellitus patients without any drugs treatment and 15 type 2 diabetes mellitus patients treated with metformin hydrochloride for 3 months. The resulting data were subjected to chemometric analysis (principal component analysis and partial least squares discriminant analysis) to investigate the effect of metformin hydrochloride on serum metabolite profiles of type 2 diabetes mellitus patients. 1H NMR spectroscopic analysis revealed increased trimethylamine-N-oxide (TMAO), 3-hydroxybutyrate (3-HB) and decreased glucose, N-acetyl glycoprotein (NAC), lipoprotein, lactate, acetoacetate and unsaturated lipids in serum from metformin treated patients compared to untreated ones. UPLC/MS in positive electrospray ionization detected increased tryptophan and decreased lysophosphatidylcholines (C16:0 LPC, C18:0 LPC and C18:2 LPC) as well as phenylalanine in treated group. Both analytical techniques used in this study were able to detect biochemical changes in the serum of type 2 diabetes mellitus patients after the treatment of metformin hydrochloride, which may be helpful to the understanding of action mechanism of metformin hydrochloride.