The identification of a potential plasma metabolite marker for Alzheimer's disease by LC-MS untargeted metabolomics

Background and aims: Alzheimer's disease (AD), the most common type of dementia, is hard to recognize early, resulting in delayed treatment and poor outcome. At present, there is neither reliable, non-invasive methods to diagnose it accurately and nor effective drugs to recover it. Discovery and quantification of novel metabolite markers in plasma of AD patients and investigation of the correlation between the markers and AD assessment scores. Materials and methods: Untargeted liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS)-based metabolomics with LC -quadrupole-time-of-flight (Q-TOF) was performed in plasma samples of age-matched AD patients and healthy controls. The potential markers were further quantified with targeted multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) approach. Results: Among the candidates, progesterone, and 3-indoleacetic acid (3-IAA) were successfully identified and then validated in 50 plasma samples from 25 AD patients and 25 matched normal controls with MRM approach. As a result, 3-IAA was significantly altered in AD patients and correlated with some AD assessment scores. Conclusion: By using untargeted LC-MS metabolomic and LC-MRM approaches to analyze plasma metabolites of AD patients and normal subjects, 3-IAA was discovered and quantified to be significantly altered in AD patients and correlated with several AD assessment scores.