Metabolomics Study Of Rat Urine With Long Term Arsenic Exposure

Long term inorganic arsenic exposure can cause many diseases and health damage, and the biological mechanism underneath remains unclear. Globally , over 200 million people are under the threat of arsenic pollution of drinking water. In this study, we performed metabolomics analysis of rat urine samples which were exposed to inorganic arsenic through drinking water a long term. The results indicated that long-term arsenic exposure could cause significant urinary metabolome change, especially for the high-dose exposure groups. Totally 36 kinds of differential metabolites were identified, in which 14 were related with amino acid metabolism , including tryptophan , arginine , proline , lysine , beta-alanine , cysteine , methionine , glycine , serine and threonine , and 11 were related with lipid metabolism , including sphingolipids and fatty acids. The expression and post-translational modifications of proteins were also influenced. Such biological process mutations are the key molecular indicators of arsenic toxicological mechanisms.