Urinary metabolomic phenotyping of nickel induced acute toxicity in rat: an NMR spectroscopy approach

Abstract

The metabolomic approach has been widely used in toxicology to investigate mechanisms of toxicity. To understand the mammalian system’s response to nickel exposure, we analysed the NiCl2 induced metabolomic changes in urine of rats using 1H nuclear magnetic resonance (1H NMR) spectroscopy together with clinically relevant biochemical parameters. Male Sprague–Dawley rats were administered intraperitoneally with NiCl2 at doses of 4, 10 and 20 mg/kg body weight. Urine samples were collected at 8, 16, 24, 72, 96 and 120 h post treatment. The metabolomic profile of rat urine showed prominent changes in citrate, dimethylamine, creatinine, choline, trimethylamine oxide (TMAO), phenyl alanine and hippurate at all doses. Principal component analysis of urine 1H NMR spectra demonstrated the dose and time dependent development of toxicity. The metabolomic time trajectory, based on pattern recognition analysis of 1H NMR spectra of urine, illustrated clear separation of pre and post treatments (temporal). Only animals treated with a low dose of NiCl2 returned to normal physiology. The 1H NMR spectral data correlated well with the clinically relevant nephrotoxic biomarkers. The urinary metabolomic phenotyping for NiCl2 induced nephrotoxicity was defined according to the predictive ability of the known metabolite biomarkers, creatinine, citrate and TMAO. The current approach demonstrates that metabolomics, one of the most important platform in system biology, may be a promising tool for identifying and characterizing biochemical responses to toxicity.