Abstract

Accumulating evidence shows that urinary volatile organic compounds (VOCs) could be perturbed in many physiological and pathological states, including several diseases and different dietary exposures. Few studies investigated the urinary metabolic signature associated to excess body weight and obesity in adult populations, while a different VOCs profile was found in exhaled breath in obese as compared to lean children. Aim of this study was to evaluate the VOCs profile in the urine of 21 overweight/obese (OW/Ob) and 28 normal-weight (NW) children belonging to the Italian cohort of the I. Family study. Urine samples were analysed by Solid Phase Micro-Extraction (SPME) GC-MS under both acidic and alkaline conditions, in order to profile a wider range of urinary volatiles with different physicochemical properties. Multivariate statistics techniques were applied to bioanalytical data to visualize clusters of cases and detect the VOCs able to differentiate OW/Ob from NW children. Under alkaline conditions, fourteen VOCs were identified, distinguishing OW/Ob from NW children. Our results suggest that VOCs signatures differ between OW/Ob and NW children. However, the biological and pathophysiological meaning of the observed differences needs to be elucidated, in order to better understand the potential of urinary VOCs as early metabolic biomarkers of obesity.

Highlights

  • Childhood obesity incidence has globally risen at an alarming rate during last decades

  • Alkhouri et al have provided evidence on significant differences of the pattern of exhaled volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in obese children compared with lean controls, demonstrating that various breath VOCs could potentially be useful to gain insight into pathophysiological processes and pathways leading to the development of childhood obesity and its related complications[8]

  • Typical solid-phase microextraction (SPME) gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC-MS) TIC chromatograms of urine samples from a NW and an OW/Ob child, reported, respectively, in Fig. 1a and b, show that very similar VOCs profiles were obtained from the urine of the two groups of subjects, when analysed under acid conditions

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Summary

Introduction

Childhood obesity incidence has globally risen at an alarming rate during last decades. The long-term metabolic consequences of childhood obesity are mainly associated with an excessive accumulation of body fat, which in turn leads to an increased risk to develop non-communicable diseases, like type 2 diabetes mellitus and cardiovascular diseases[2]. Urine samples can be and non-invasively collected in large quantities and stored for long periods They offer higher concentrations of VOCs compared to other body fluids. A large body of evidence has revealed that urinary VOCs profiles contain rich information about individual physiological conditions, so that some urinary VOCs can be considered potential biomarkers in diagnosing or monitoring several pathological conditions, including diabetes, autism syndrome and different types of cancer[6,9]. Urine analysis by SPME GC-MS has been well established as an easy, fast and reliable diagnostic tool allowing the identification of possible urinary disease-associated VOCs

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