Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR)-based metabolomic studies on urine and serum biochemical profiles after chronic cysteamine supplementation in rats.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of chronic cysteamine (CS) supplementation on rat metabolism. Rats received biweekly intragastric administration of either CS-HCl at 250 mg/kg body weight or saline (control) for 4 weeks. The 24 h urine and blood serum samples after the last CS treatment were analyzed by nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR)-based metabolomics, specifically high-resolution (1)H NMR metabolic profiling combined with multivariate statistics. Metabolic effects of CS include decreased serum acetate, trimethylamine-N-oxide, and urine hippurate, together with increased urine dimethylamine, indicating modulation of intestinal microbial metabolism of the rats. A decrease in urine succinate, citric acid, and serum acetoacetate, together with an increase in serum lactate, was also observed, which suggests that CS supplementation results in perturbation of energy metabolism in rats.