Revealing disease-associated pathways by network integration of untargeted metabolomics.

Nat Methods
Authors
Abstract

Uncovering the molecular context of dysregulated metabolites is crucial to understand pathogenic pathways. However, their system-level analysis has been limited owing to challenges in global metabolite identification. Most metabolite features detected by untargeted metabolomics carried out by liquid-chromatography-mass spectrometry cannot be uniquely identified without additional, time-consuming experiments. We report a network-based approach, prize-collecting Steiner forest algorithm for integrative analysis of untargeted metabolomics (PIUMet), that infers molecular pathways and components via integrative analysis of metabolite features, without requiring their identification. We demonstrated PIUMet by analyzing changes in metabolism of sphingolipids, fatty acids and steroids in a Huntington's disease model. Additionally, PIUMet enabled us to elucidate putative identities of altered metabolite features in diseased cells, and infer experimentally undetected, disease-associated metabolites and dysregulated proteins. Finally, we established PIUMet's ability for integrative analysis of untargeted metabolomics data with proteomics data, demonstrating that this approach elicits disease-associated metabolites and proteins that cannot be inferred by individual analysis of these data.

Year of Publication
2016
Journal
Nat Methods
Volume
13
Issue
9
Pages
770-6
Date Published
2016 Sep
ISSN
1548-7105
DOI
10.1038/nmeth.3940
PubMed ID
27479327
PubMed Central ID
PMC5209295
Links
Grant list
R01 GM089903 / GM / NIGMS NIH HHS / United States
P30 CA014051 / CA / NCI NIH HHS / United States
U54 CA112967 / CA / NCI NIH HHS / United States
U01 CA184898 / CA / NCI NIH HHS / United States
U54 NS091046 / NS / NINDS NIH HHS / United States
R01 NS089076 / NS / NINDS NIH HHS / United States
P30 CA014195 / CA / NCI NIH HHS / United States