PLoS ONE：研究发现人尿含三千多种化学物质

       人体尿液蕴藏着人体健康、饮食与环境污染物接触等方面的关键信息，其在医学研究方面的历史已有3000多年。直到19世纪晚期，尿液的色与味还是医生看病的主要手段之一。

        现在，来自加拿大艾伯塔大学（University of Alberta）的科学家们经过7年多的研究，发现人体尿液中含有超过3000种化学物质。确定尿液的化学成分，对于有针对性地改善人体健康具有长远影响。相关研究论文刊登在了近期出版的《PLoS ONE》杂志上。

        在这项研究中，研究人员利用多种先进的分析化学技术，结合文献资料，对22名健康志愿者的尿液进行分析检测，共发现了3079种化学物质。

        研究人员表示，尿液是一种极其复杂的生物流体，但没想到会有这么多种不同的化学物质进入尿液。目前多数尿检只检测六七种化学成分，多数医学教科书也仅列出尿液中的 50 到 100 种化学成分，而这项研究则将名单扩充了 30 倍。

        这一成果将使利用尿液而非血液或组织切片的新一代医学检测技术成为可能，从而让检测成本下降，耗时变短。现在，针对结肠癌、前列腺癌、腹腔疾病、溃疡性结肠炎、肺炎与器官移植排斥等新一代尿液诊断技术已进入开发过程或即将进入医院。（转化医学网360zhyx.com）

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The Human Urine Metabolome

Urine has long been a “favored” biofluid among metabolomics researchers. It is sterile, easy-to-obtain in large volumes, largely free from interfering proteins or lipids and chemically complex. However, this chemical complexity has also made urine a particularly difficult substrate to fully understand. As a biological waste material, urine typically contains metabolic breakdown products from a wide range of foods, drinks, drugs, environmental contaminants, endogenous waste metabolites and bacterial by-products. Many of these compounds are poorly characterized and poorly understood. In an effort to improve our understanding of this biofluid we have undertaken a comprehensive, quantitative, metabolome-wide characterization of human urine. This involved both computer-aided literature mining and comprehensive, quantitative experimental assessment/validation. The experimental portion employed NMR spectroscopy, gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC-MS), direct flow injection mass spectrometry (DFI/LC-MS/MS), inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) and high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) experiments performed on multiple human urine samples. This multi-platform metabolomic analysis allowed us to identify 445 and quantify 378 unique urine metabolites or metabolite species. The different analytical platforms were able to identify (quantify) a total of: 209 (209) by NMR, 179 (85) by GC-MS, 127 (127) by DFI/LC-MS/MS, 40 (40) by ICP-MS and 10 (10) by HPLC. Our use of multiple metabolomics platforms and technologies allowed us to identify several previously unknown urine metabolites and to substantially enhance the level of metabolome coverage. It also allowed us to critically assess the relative strengths and weaknesses of different platforms or technologies. The literature review led to the identification and annotation of another 2206 urinary compounds and was used to help guide the subsequent experimental studies. An online database containing the complete set of 2651 confirmed human urine metabolite species, their structures (3079 in total), concentrations, related literature references and links to their known disease associations are freely available at http://www.urinemetabolome.ca.

来源：bio360