Metabolomics-Based Studies Assessing Exercise-Induced Alterations of the Human Metabolome: A Systematic Review

Abstract

This systematic review provides a qualitative appraisal of 24 high-quality metabolomics-based studies published over the past decade exploring exercise-induced alterations of the human metabolome. Of these papers, 63% focused on acute metabolite changes following intense and prolonged exercise. The best studies utilized liquid chromatography mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) analytical platforms with large chemical standard libraries and strong, multivariate bioinformatics support. These studies reported large-fold changes in diverse lipid-related metabolites, with more than 100 increasing two-fold or greater within a few hours post-exercise. Metabolite shifts, even after strenuous exercise, typically return to near pre-exercise levels after one day of recovery. Few studies investigated metabolite changes following acute exercise bouts of shorter durations (< 60 min) and workload volumes. Plasma metabolite shifts in these types of studies are modest in comparison. More cross-sectional and exercise training studies are needed to improve scientific understanding of the human system’s response to varying, chronic exercise workloads. The findings derived from this review provide direction for future investigations focused on the body’s metabolome response to exercise.

Circulating Pro- and Anti-Inflammatory Metabolites and Its Potential Role in Rheumatoid Arthritis Pathogenesis

“…For example, in people who exercise more than 2 h per day, some metabolites, including medium and long fatty acids, ketones, sulfated bile acids, palmitate, of 31 linoleate, stearate, and palmitoleate, increased two-fold in their plasma concentration. Decreases of pyruvate and lactate, among others intermediates of TCA, have been reported after a short running period [96]. The reader can find an extensive review of these changes in a recently published review [96] about metabolic changes after exercising.…”

“…Decreases of pyruvate and lactate, among others intermediates of TCA, have been reported after a short running period [96]. The reader can find an extensive review of these changes in a recently published review [96] about metabolic changes after exercising.…”

Emerging Insights into the Metabolic Alterations in Aging Using Metabolomics

“…The total number of primary metabolites in biological systems is currently debatable, although it was reported that yeast contains a few hundred metabolites [5], humans contain thousands of metabolites [6,7], whereas plants contain hundreds of thousands of metabolites [8,9]. The 'metabolome' represents the complete complement of small-molecule metabolites in a biological system [10,11], which varies in response to the genomic, transcriptomic, proteomic, or environmental alterations, and is based on the physiological, pathological, or developmental state of the biological system [12][13][14][15]. The metabolome is not directly involved in the "central dogma" information flow, unlike the genome, transcriptome, and proteome ( Figure 1), and indeed the human metabolome is much smaller than the proteome, which makes it relatively easier to characterize using the high-content and high-throughput system biology approaches [16].…”

Commentary: Metabolomics-Based Studies Assessing Exercise-Induced Alterations of the Human Metabolome: A Systematic Review

“…Metabolomics-Based Studies Assessing Exercise-Induced Alterations of the Human Metabolome: A Systematic Review by Sakaguchi, C. A., Nieman, D. C., Signini, E. F., Abreu, R. M., and Catai, A. M. (2019). Metabolites 9:164. doi: 10.3390/metabo9080164…”

“…We have read with interest the study of Sakaguchi et al (2019), which proposes a qualitative appraisal of recent metabolomics-based studies (published over the past decade) exploring exerciseinduced alterations of the human metabolome. The authors devised a scoring system ranging from zero (poor quality = below 4) to 11 (excellent quality = above nine) to attribute quality levels for each assessed study.…”