Variability of the human serum metabolome over 3 months in the EXPOsOMICS Personal Exposure Monitoring study
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Liquid chromatography coupled to high-resolution mass spectrometry (LC-HRMS) and untargeted metabolomics are increasingly used in exposome studies to study the interactions between nongenetic factors and the blood metabolome. To reliably and efficiently link detected compounds to exposures and health phenotypes in such studies, it is important to understand the variability in metabolome measures. We assessed the within- and between-subject variability of untargeted LC-HRMS measurements in 298 nonfasting human serum samples collected on two occasions from 157 subjects. Samples were collected ca. 107 (IQR: 34) days apart as part of the multicenter EXPOsOMICS Personal Exposure Monitoring study. In total, 4294 metabolic features were detected, and 184 unique compounds could be identified with high confidence. The median intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) across all metabolic features was 0.51 (IQR: 0.29) and 0.64 (IQR: 0.25) for the 184 uniquely identified compounds. For this group, the median ICC marginally changed (0.63) when we included common confounders (age, sex, and body mass index) in the regression model. When grouping compounds by compound class, the ICC was largest among glycerophospholipids (median ICC 0.70) and steroids (0.67), and lowest for amino acids (0.61) and the O-acylcarnitine class (0.44). ICCs varied substantially within chemical classes. Our results suggest that the metabolome as measured with untargeted LC-HRMS is fairly stable (ICC > 0.5) over 100 days for more than half of the features monitored in our study, to reflect average levels across this time period. Variance across the metabolome will result in differential measurement error across the metabolome, which needs to be considered in the interpretation of metabolome results.
Date Issued
2023-08-29
Date Acceptance
2023-07-28
Citation
Environmental Science and Technology (Washington), 2023, 57 (34), pp.12752-12759
ISSN
0013-936X
Publisher
American Chemical Society
Start Page
12752
End Page
12759
Journal / Book Title
Environmental Science and Technology (Washington)
Volume
57
Issue
34
Copyright Statement
© 2023 The Authors. Published by American Chemical Society. This publication is licensed under
CC-BY 4.0. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
CC-BY 4.0. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
License URL
Identifier
https://www.webofscience.com/api/gateway?GWVersion=2&SrcApp=PARTNER_APP&SrcAuth=LinksAMR&KeyUT=WOS:001049426400001&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=ALL_WOS&UsrCustomerID=a2bf6146997ec60c407a63945d4e92bb
Subjects
AIR-POLLUTION
between-individualvariability
biomarkers
blood
cohortstudy
Engineering
Engineering, Environmental
Environmental Sciences
Environmental Sciences & Ecology
epidemiology
intraclass correlation coefficient(ICC)
Life Sciences & Biomedicine
liquid chromatography coupled to high-resolutionmass spectrometry (LC-HRMS)
metabolomics
reliability
repeatability
RISK
Science & Technology
Technology
variability
within-individual variability
Publication Status
Published
Date Publish Online
2023-08-15