Diagnostic Potential of Free Blood Choline as a Biomarker of the Physiological Status of the Organism

Abstract

Choline is an essential nutrient. Mitochondrial dysfunctions, oxidative stress and associated risks of developing non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, cardiovascular disease, muscular dystrophy, and fetal neural tube pathology are associated with insufficient choline intake. At the same time, excessive consumption of choline is associated with the accumulation in the blood of a uremic toxin – trimethylamine oxide, the bioprecursor of which is not phosphatidylcholine, but free blood choline. The content of choline and its metabolites in blood plasma is associated with different types of vascular pathologies, and allows predicting the severity of cardiovascular and other associated diseases. Contradictory information about the norm and deviations from the norm of the content of free choline in the blood plasma is due to insufficient attention to the stabilization of the content of free choline in the blood plasma at the stages preceding the instrumental analysis. When using EDTA as an anticoagulant and following a cold regimen (not higher than 4°C) immediately after blood sampling and 23 up to instrumental analysis, it is possible to avoid an increase in the concentration of choline in ex vivo plasma.