Abstract
Feline diabetes mellitus shares many features with type 2 diabetes in people, regarding clinical presentation, physiology, and pathology. A breed predisposition for type 2 diabetes has been identified, with the Burmese breed at a fivefold increased risk of developing the condition compared to other purebred cats. We aimed to characterize the serum metabolome in cats (n = 63) using nuclear magnetic resonance metabolomics, and to compare the metabolite pattern of Burmese cats with that of two cat breeds of medium or low risk of diabetes, the Maine coon (MCO) and Birman cat, respectively. Serum concentrations of adiponectin, insulin and insulin-like growth factor-1 were also measured (n = 94). Burmese cats had higher insulin and lower adiponectin concentrations than MCO cats. Twenty one metabolites were discriminative between breeds using a multivariate statistical approach and 15 remained significant after adjustment for body weight and body condition score. Burmese cats had higher plasma levels of 2-hydroxybutyrate relative to MCO and Birman cats and increased concentrations of 2-oxoisocaproic acid, and tyrosine, and lower concentrations of dimethylglycine relative to MCO cats. The metabolic profile of MCO cats was characterized by high concentrations of arginine, asparagine, methionine, succinic acid and low levels of acetylcarnitine while Birman cats had the highest creatinine and the lowest taurine plasma levels, compared with MCO and Burmese. The pattern of metabolites in Burmese cats is similar to that in people with insulin resistance. In conclusion, the metabolic profile differed between healthy cats of three breeds. Detection of an abnormal metabolome might identify cats at risk of developing diabetes.
Highlights
Diabetes mellitus (DM) is an increasingly common endocrinopathy in cats and has many features in common with human type 2 diabetes (T2DM) [1, 2]
Age and sex distribution did not differ between breeds, body weight (BW) (MCO > Burmese > Birman) and body condition score (BCS) (Burmese > Birman) did (Table 1)
In the present study the metabolic fingerprint was compared between three breeds (Burmese, Maine coon (MCO) and Birman cats) and higher concentrations of biomarkers associated with insulin resistance and/or diabetes were observed in Burmese cats, the breed with highest risk of developing DM
Summary
Diabetes mellitus (DM) is an increasingly common endocrinopathy in cats and has many features in common with human type 2 diabetes (T2DM) [1, 2]. Hypertriglyceridemia is one of the components of the metabolic syndrome in people, together with central obesity, increased blood pressure and IR [21]. People with metabolic syndrome have a fivefold increased risk of developing T2DM [22]. Subsequent studies have described aberrations in the cholesterol lipoprotein fraction profiles in lean Burmese cats, similar to obese cats, with increases in very low-density lipoprotein (VLDL) concentrations, and decreases in high-density lipoproteins (HDL), a pattern similar to the metabolic syndrome in people [23,24,25,26]. The expression patterns of several genes involved in lipid metabolism as well as low circulating adiponectin concentrations in lean Burmese cats resemble those of obese cats. Low adiponectin levels are associated with IR and T2DM [27,28,29,30,31]
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