Pyrexia usually is a systemic pathological process that can lead to metabolic disorders. Metabonomics as a powerful tool not only can reveal the pathological mechanisms, but also can give insight into the progression of pyrexia from another angle. Thus, an ultra high performance liquid chromatography combined with Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry (UHPLC-FT-ICR-MS) metabonomic approach was employed for the first time to investigate the plasma biochemical characteristics of pyrexia induced by three methods and to reveal subtle metabolic changes under the condition of pyrexia so as to explore its mechanism. The acquired metabolic data of the models were subjected to principal component analysis (PCA) for allowing the clear separation of the pyrexia rats from the control rats. Variable importance for project values (VIP) and Student’s t-test were used to screen the significant metabolic changes caused by pyrexia. Fifty-two endogenous metabolites were identified and putatively identified as potential biomarkers primarily associated with phospholipid metabolism, sphingolipid metabolism, fatty acid oxidation metabolism, fatty acid amides metabolism and amino acid metabolism, and related to bile acid biosynthesis and glycerolipid catabolism. LysoPC (14:0), LysoPC (18:3), LysoPC (20:4), LysoPC (16:0), phytosphingosine, Cer (d18:0/12:0), N-[(4E,8E)-1,3-dihydroxyoctadeca-4,8-dien-2-yl]hexadecanamide, oleamide, fatty acid amide C22:1, tryptophan, acetylcarnitine, palmitoylcarnitine and stearoylcarnitine were considered as common potential biomarkers of pyrexia rats induced by three methods: Our results revealed that the UHPLC-FT-ICR-MS-based metabolomic method is helpful for finding new potential metabolic markers for pyrexia detection and offers a good perspective in pyrexia research.

发热通常是系统性病理过程，可导致代谢异常。代谢组学作为一种强大的工具，不仅可以揭示病理机制，而且还可以从另一个角度洞悉发热症的进展。因此，首次采用超高效液相色谱法结合傅里叶变换离子回旋共振质谱（UHPLC-FT-ICR-MS）代谢组学方法研究了三种方法引起的发热的血浆生化特性并揭示了细微的差别。在发热的情况下发生代谢变化，以探讨其机理。对获得的模型代谢数据进行主成分分析（PCA），以使发热的大鼠与对照组的大鼠明确分离。t检验用于筛选由发热引起的显着代谢变化。52种内源性代谢物被鉴定并被推定为潜在的生物标志物，主要与磷脂代谢，鞘脂代谢，脂肪酸氧化代谢，脂肪酸酰胺代谢和氨基酸代谢有关，并且与胆汁酸的生物合成和甘油脂的分解代谢有关。LysoPC（14：0），LysoPC（18：3），LysoPC（20：4），LysoPC（16：0），植物鞘氨醇，Cer（d18：0/12：0），N-[（4E，8E）- 1,3-二羟基十八烷基-4,8-​​二烯-2-基]十六烷酰胺，油酰胺，脂肪酸酰胺C22：1，色氨酸，乙酰肉碱，棕榈酰肉碱和硬脂酰肉碱被认为是通过三种方法诱导的发热大鼠的常见潜在生物标志物：我们的结果表明，基于UHPLC-FT-ICR-MS的代谢组学方法是有助于发现新的潜在代谢标记物，用于发热检测，并为发热研究提供良好的前景。