Untargeted Metabolomics of Body Dysmorphic Disorder

Abstract

BDD (Body Dysmorphic Disorder) is a disorder associated with depression and eating disorders, often arising from minor defects in appearance or an individual's imagining that he or she is defective. However, the pathogenesis and mechanism of BDD are not clear, and its pathogenesis and adjuvant treatment methods still need to be explored. We employed an liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS)-based metabolomics approach to identify key metabolic differences in BDD. Plasma samples from 2 independent cohorts (8 BDD patients and 8 healthy controls) were collected to characterize metabolic changes in BDD patients. The raw data were subjected to the Compound Discovery program for peak alignment, retention time correction, and extraction of peak areas. Metabolite structure identification was performed using the Compound Discovery program by means of accurate mass matching (<10ppm) and secondary spectral matching to search the database. Multidimensional statistical analysis was performed using the R statistical software ropls tool, including unsupervised PCA (principal component analysis) analysis, supervised PLS-DA (partial least squares discriminant analysis) and OPLS-DA (orthogonal partial least squares discriminant analysis). Identify the most promising metabolic signatures associated with BDD across all metabolomic datasets. Occurrence of BDD may be related to ABC transporters, purine metabolism, Glycine, serine and threonine metabolism, Pyrimidine, Pyrimidine metabolism, Biosynthesis of 12-, 14- and 16-membered macrolides, microbial metabolism in diverse environments, Biosynthesis of secondary metabolites, Caffeine and Insect hormone biosynthesis.