Untargeted metabonomic analysis of a cerebral stroke model in rats: a study based on UPLC–MS/MS

INTRODUCTION: Brain tissue damage caused by ischemic stroke can trigger changes in the body’s metabolic response, and understanding the changes in the metabolic response of the gut after stroke can contribute to research on poststroke brain function recovery. Despite the increase in international research on poststroke metabolic mechanisms and the availability of powerful research tools in recent years, there is still an urgent need for poststroke metabolic studies. Metabolomic examination of feces from a cerebral ischemia–reperfusion rat model can provide new insights into poststroke metabolism and identify key metabolic pathways, which will help reveal diagnostic and therapeutic targets as well as inspire pathophysiological studies after stroke. METHODS: We randomly divided 16 healthy adult pathogen-free male Sprague–Dawley (SD) rats into the normal group and the study group, which received middle cerebral artery occlusion/reperfusion (MCAO/R). Ultra-performance liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry (UPLCMS/MS) was used to determine the identities and concentrations of metabolites across all groups, and filtered high-quality data were analyzed for differential screening and differential metabolite functional analysis. RESULTS: After 1 and 14 days of modeling, compared to the normal group, rats in the study group showed significant neurological deficits (p < 0.001) and significantly increased infarct volume (day 1: p < 0.001; day 14: p = 0.001). Mass spectra identified 1,044 and 635 differential metabolites in rat feces in positive and negative ion modes, respectively, which differed significantly between the normal and study groups. The metabolites with increased levels identified in the study group were involved in tryptophan metabolism (p = 0.036678, p < 0.05), arachidonic acid metabolism (p = 0.15695), cysteine and methionine metabolism (p = 0.24705), and pyrimidine metabolism (p = 0.3413), whereas the metabolites with decreased levels were involved in arginine and proline metabolism (p = 0.15695) and starch and sucrose metabolism (p = 0.52256). DISCUSSION: We determined that UPLC–MS/MS could be employed for untargeted metabolomics research. Moreover, tryptophan metabolic pathways may have been disordered in the study group. Alterations in the tryptophan metabolome may provide additional theoretical and data support for elucidating stroke pathogenesis and selecting pathways for intervention.