NMR analysis of biofluids to detect chronic illness

NMR provides rapid analysis of biofluids to characterise the metabolome, assisting in both the detection and management of chronic illness. Recently several peer-reviewed studies used benchtop NMR spectroscopy to characterise a range of the most significant biomarkers which would help identify conditions, including diabetes, chronic kidney disease (CKD), and adult-onset blindness. Hence, the use of NMR, and where possible benchtop NMR, in metabolomics research could support the earlier detection of chronic illness and enable the development of clinical decision support tools to reduce increasing demands on our healthcare systems from an aging population.

Metabolomic analysis of biofluids via NMR requires effective solvent suppression, as these samples typically have a high concentration of water, which may swamp smaller signals from medically important molecules in NMR spectra. Recently, researchers used the water suppression capabilities of the X-Pulse benchtop NMR spectrometer to identify up to 15 metabolites in the urine of felines with chronic kidney disease that were not present in the control subjects. Feline urine is used as an analogue to the human equivalent. This indicates that similar benchtop NMR based metabolomics techniques can identify a wide range of marker combinations in urine and other biofluids. Identification of such biomarkers enables the use of various statistical analysis or computational intelligence tools to identify those subjects most likely to be affected by those longer-term chronic illnesses.

Figure 1. ¹H NMR spectra of feline urine displaying major metabolites. Insert shows four comparative spectra from the same study.