Glycine‐Serine‐Threonine Metabolic Axis Delays Intervertebral Disc Degeneration through Antioxidant Effects: An Imaging and Metabonomics Study

Abstract

Although intervertebral disc degeneration (IDD) can be described as different stages of change through biological methods, this long and complex process cannot be defined in stages by single or simple combination of biological techniques. Under the background of the development of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) technology and the emerging metabonomics, we based on animal models and expanded to the study of clinical human degeneration models. The characteristics of different stages of IDD were analyzed by omics. Omics imaging combined with histology, cytology, and proteomics was used for screening of the intervertebral disc (IVD) of research subjects. Furthermore, mass spectrometry nontargeted metabolomics was used to explore profile of metabolites at different stages of the IDD process, to determine differential metabolic pathways and metabolites. NMR spectroscopy was used to qualitatively and quantitatively identify markers of degeneration. NMR was combined with mass spectrometry metabolomics to explore metabolic pathways. Metabolic pathways were determined through protein molecular biology and histocytology of the different groups. Distinguishing advantages of magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) for analysis of metabolites and effective reflection of structural integrity and water molecule metabolism through diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) were further used to verify the macrometabolism profile during degeneration. A corresponding model of in vitro metabolomics and in vivo omics imaging was established. The findings of this study show that a series of metabolic pathways associated with the glycine-serine-threonine (Gly-Ser-Thr) metabolic axis affects carbohydrate patterns and energy utilization efficiency and ultimately delays disc degeneration through antioxidant effects.

Clinical features and metabolic reprogramming of atherosclerotic lesions in patients with chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension

“…More importantly, previous studies showed that alterations in amino acid metabolism could accelerate the development of coronary atherosclerosis and ischemic heart disease ( 35 , 36 ). The differential metabolites in atherosclerotic lesions found in this study were significantly related to altered energy metabolism, which were consistent with metabolomic investigations of atherosclerosis using coronary tissues ( 37 , 38 ). Therefore, we believe that the chronic thromboembolism has a certain impact on the proinflammatory cytokine production and altered energy metabolism of the local pulmonary artery, thereby affecting lipid deposition.…”

Improvement in Mung Bean Peptide on High-Fat Diet-Induced Insulin Resistance Mice Using Untargeted Serum Metabolomics

“…Compared with the NCD group, the serum glycine content in the HFD group was significantly decreased (P < 0.01); compared with the HFD group, serum glycine content in the HFD + MBPs group was significantly increased (P < 0.05). Therefore, glycine is very likely to be a biomarker of MBPs to alleviate insulin resistance, which is closely related to hyperglycaemia (21), and a marker metabolite for diabetic nephropathy (22). Glycine is also significantly associated with obesity (23), non-alcoholic fatty liver (24), and liver injury (25).…”

Current status and trends in quantitative MRI study of intervertebral disc degeneration: a bibliometric and clinical study analysis

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