Serum Metabolic Signatures of Four Types of Human Arthritis

Similar symptoms of the different types of arthritis have continued to confound the clinical diagnosis and represent a clinical dilemma making treatment choices with a more personalized or generalized approach. Here we report a mass spectrometry-based metabolic phenotyping study to identify the global metabolic defects associated with arthritis as well as metabolic signatures of four major types of arthritis—rheumatoid arthritis (n = 27), osteoarthritis (n = 27), ankylosing spondylitis (n = 27), and gout (n = 33)—compared with healthy control subjects (n = 60). A total of 196 metabolites were identified from serum samples using a combined gas chromatography coupled with time-of-flight mass spectrometry (GC–TOF MS) and ultraperformance liquid chromatography quadrupole-time-of-flight mass spectrometry (UPLC–QTOF MS). A global metabolic profile is identified from all arthritic patients, suggesting that there are common metabolic defects resulting from joint inflammation and lesion. Meanwhile, differentially ...