Prediction and treatment have always been important means for diseases control and prevention. For diseases that can not be cured, including cancer, gout and so on, early prediction and intervention are particularly important. For the past two decades, to develop forecasting and warning techniques for major diseases using modern analytical technology and metabonomics has become an important area in modern bioanalytical chemistry.

Prediction and recognition of gout using metabonomics and HPLC A:gout (Δ) versusnon-gout(■)samples, B:acute gout (Δ) versus chronic gout (■)samples, C:gout versus non-gout samples, D:acute gout versus chronic gout samples (Image by DI Duolong et al.)

The technological standard for pharmaceuticals research group at CAS Key Laboratory of Chemistry of Northwestern Plant Resources, Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics (LICP), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), has been engaged in the development of forecasting and warning techniques for cancer, gout and other major diseases using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), high performance liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS) in combination with metabonomics. Recently, taking gout as the research object since as for symptomatic gout, there exists only one clinical testing item, high misdiagnosing rate, long latent time, they have carried out metabolite target analysis and metabolic profiling analysis of metabolite in human serum and urine. The results show that gout and non-gout, hypercalcaemia and acute gout can not be differentiated only using uric acid as the clinical index.

It is found that besides uric acid, creatinine and tryptophan in human serum and creatinine, guanosine and hippuric acid in urine can all be used as biomarkers to differentiate between gout from non-gout. During the metabolic process of gout, disorder of tryptophan metabolism in chronic gout has been observed for the first time. Further studies demonstrate that the recognition and prediction rate of gout by the mathematical model based on the selected biomarkers is above 85%. This system is better than the system which used uric acid as the only clinical index.

The above work is of guiding significance for the illustration of pathogenesis, early prediction, diagnosis and treatment of gout.

The work has received support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China . The findings have been published in Molecular Biosystems(Mol. Biosyst.2012, 8, 2956-2963), Chemometrics and Intelligent Laboratory Systems(Chemometr. Intell. Lab.2012,11,5, 37-43),New Journal of Chemistry(New J. Chem.2012, 36, 2376-2382), Bulletin of Korean Chemical Society(B. Kor. Chem. Soc.2012, 33, 2156-2162),Clinic Chimica Acta(Clin. Chim. Acta2011, 412, 2132-2140), Journal of Chemometrics(J.Chemometr.2011, 25, 430-440).