Identification of sex-specific urinary biomarkers for major depressive disorder by combined application of NMR- and GC–MS-based metabonomics

Abstract

Women are more vulnerable to major depressive disorder (MDD) than men. However, molecular biomarkers of sex differences are limited. Here we combined gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS)- and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR)-based metabonomics to investigate sex differences of urinary metabolite markers in MDD, and further explore their potential of diagnosing MDD. Consequently, the metabolite signatures of women and men MDD subjects were significantly different from of that in their respective healthy controls (HCs). Twenty seven women and 36 men related differentially expressed metabolites were identified in MDD. Fourteen metabolites were changed in both women and men MDD subjects. Significantly, the women-specific (m-Hydroxyphenylacetate, malonate, glycolate, hypoxanthine, isobutyrate and azelaic acid) and men-specific (tyrosine, N-acetyl-d-glucosamine, N-methylnicotinamide, indoxyl sulfate, citrate and succinate) marker panels were further identified, which could differentiate men and women MDD patients from their respective HCs with higher accuracy than previously reported sex-nonspecific marker panels. Our findings demonstrate that men and women MDD patients have distinct metabonomic signatures and sex-specific biomarkers have promising values in diagnosing MDD.

The effect of acupuncture on depression and its correlation with metabolic alterations

“…Even under the assumption of well consistency in patients’ fundamental conditions, there performs still huge individual variations among each patient. [ 19 , 20 ] These differences may result from diverse eating habits, educational background, living environment, etc, which may demonstrate why different studies utilizing metabolomics for the same disease tend to reach various outcomes. Considering that the metabolome is sensitive to external factors, especially diet and sleeping schedules, we adopted the design of the patient before and after a control experiment to manage this uncontrollable factor.…”

Novel urinary metabolite signature for diagnosing postpartum depression

“…But this panel could only accurately predict 41.1% PPD subjects, which was significantly lower than the prediction accuracy of our panel identified in this study. Two reasons might cause this difference: 1) the panel identified by Zheng et al18 was used to diagnose depression and 2) all included subjects here were women, but the panel identified by Zheng et al18 did not take sex-based differences into consideration, since many studies reported that there were sex differences in depression 30–32…”

Inflaming sex differences in mood disorders

“…This relationship was more pronounced in men than in women, with correlations of white blood cell deviations to Montgomery-Asberg depression rating scale (MADRS) score only reaching significance in the male subjects. Urinalysis studies using multiple methods have revealed sex-specific metabolite biomarkers for MDD, with higher diagnostic accuracy than non-sex-specific screens [232]. Together these studies highlight the need for sex-specific research in developing diagnostic biomarkers for depression.…”