Age, breed, sex and diet influence serum metabolite profiles of 2000 pet dogs

As an individual's metabolism reflects health and disease states well, metabolomics holds a vast potential in biomedical applications. However, normal physiological factors, such as age, can also influence metabolism, challenging the establishment of disease-specific metabolic aberrations. Here, we examined how physiological and diet-related factors drive variance in the metabolism of healthy pet dogs. We analysed 2068 serum samples using a canine nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy-based metabolomics platform. With generalized linear models, we discovered that age, breed, sex, sterilization, diet type and fasting time significantly affected the canine metabolite profiles. Especially, breed and age caused considerable variation in the metabolite concentrations, and breeds with very different body conformations systematically differed in several lipid measurands. Our results enhance the understanding how normal physiological factors influence canine metabolism, aid accurate interpretation of the NMR results, and suggest the NMR platform might be applied in identifying aberrations in nutrient absorption and metabolism.