Abstract

Metabolomics provides a description of the phenotype of an organism and complementary biochemical information to genomics and proteomics. The purpose of this research was to depict the metabolite profile of faecal samples from dogs fed three different diets through NMR spectroscopy analysis. Samples were collected from 14 dogs fed a commercial extruded diet, 18 dogs fed a homemade diet and 16 dogs fed a raw meat-based diet. The average BCS for all dogs was 4–5 and the average Faecal Score was 2–3. Only healthy animals were considered, as assessed from the clinical evaluation of the veterinarians. Faecal samples were prepared using phosphate buffer (pH 7.1) combined with deuterated water and analysed with NMR spectroscopy using a Bruker Avance III HD 400 MHz spectrometer. Principal component analysis of the spectra signals demonstrated clustering of dogs according to diet, with 57.8% of the variance explained by the first three components. Targeted metabolome analysis was also performed on 56 metabolites of interest, selected from a database of 558 metabolites. Our data suggest that metabolome analysis using NMR is a promising approach to describe the phenotypic variation that occurs among dogs fed different diets.

• The metabolomic approach is becoming always more important in the evaluation of the functional responses of animals to dietary intervention.

• NMR-metabolomics has emerged as a non-destructive technique that allows a simpler data interpretation compared to other techniques.

• NMR metabolome analysis resulted to be a promising approach to describe the phenotypic variation that occurs among dogs fed different diets.

摘要

代谢组学提供了对生物体表型的描述，以及对基因组学和蛋白质组学的补充生化信息。本研究的目的是通过 NMR 光谱分析描述喂食三种不同饮食的狗的粪便样本的代谢物谱。从喂食商业挤压饮食的 14 只狗、喂食自制饮食的 18 只狗和喂食生肉为主的饮食的 16 只狗中收集样品。所有狗的平均 BCS 为 4-5，平均粪便评分为 2-3。根据兽医的临床评估，只考虑健康的动物。使用磷酸盐缓冲液 (pH 7.1) 与氘水混合制备粪便样品，并使用 Bruker Avance III HD 400 MHz 光谱仪进行 NMR 光谱分析。光谱信号的主成分分析表明狗根据饮食聚类，前三个成分解释了 57.8% 的方差。还对 56 种感兴趣的代谢物进行了靶向代谢组分析，这些代谢物选自 558 种代谢物的数据库。我们的数据表明，使用 NMR 进行代谢组学分析是描述喂食不同饮食的狗之间发生的表型变异的一种很有前景的方法。

• 在评估动物对饮食干预的功能反应时，代谢组学方法变得越来越重要。

• 核磁共振代谢组学已成为一种非破坏性技术，与其他技术相比，它允许更简单的数据解释。

• NMR 代谢组分析是描述喂食不同饮食的狗之间发生的表型变异的一种很有前途的方法。