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Rapid detection and quantitation of neopterin and biopterin in clinical urine by wooden-tip electrospray ionization mass spectrometry.

A high throughput metabolite fingerprinting tool based on wooden-tip electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (WT-ESI-MS) has been established for the serum metabolic profiling study of endometriosis with little sample pre-treatment, no chromatography and instrument cycle times of less than 5 min. Serum samples from endometriosis patients and healthy controls were analyzed by direct WT-ESI-MS with a high resolution ESI-Q-TOF-MS. The resulting data were analyzed by multivariate data analysis. MS/MS experiments were carried out to identify potential biomarkers. Global metabolic profiling and subsequent multivariate analysis clearly distinguished endometriosis patients from healthy controls.A total of ten metabolites, up-regulated or down-regulated, were identified which contribute to the progress of endometriosis. These promising identified biomarkers underpin the metabolic pathway including steroid hormone biosynthesis, glycerophospholipid metabolism, sphingolipid metabolism, pyruvate metabolism, bile acid biosynthesis, and androgen and estrogen metabolisms. Considering that a much higher throughput can be obtained without a chromatographic step, the present WT-ESI-MS method could be developed as a fast prognostic or diagnostic method for endometriosis.

Endometriosis is a complex and heterogeneous pre-malignant inflammatory disease harboring multiple gene mutations. Previous studies have suggested that caspase recruitment domain family member (CARD)10 and CARD11 mutations may exist in endometriosis. In the present study, a collection of endometriotic lesions and paired peripheral blood from 101 patients with ovarian endometriosis were obtained, and the entire coding sequences of the CARD10 and CARD11 genes were sequenced. Evolutionary conservation analysis and online prediction programs were applied to analyze the disease-causing potential of the identified mutations. A total of 4 novel somatic mutations were identified in 4 out of the 101 (4.0%) samples: 2 in-frame deletions in CARD10 (c.785_790delAGGAGA, p.K272_E273delKE; c.785_802delAGGAGAAGGAGAAGGAGA, p.K272_V277delKEPDNV) and 2 heterozygous missense mutations in CARD11 (c.49G>T, p.D17Y; c.160G>C, p.E54Q). The sample with CARD10 p.K272_E273delKE deletion was obtained from a 47-year-old patient who was also diagnosed with uterine leiomyoma, while the CARD10 p.K272_V277delKEPDNV-mutated sample was from a 43-year-old patient exhibiting a decreased blood eosinophil granulocyte ratio (0.3%) and an elevated serum creatine kinase level (314 U/l). The patient with the CARD11 p.D17Y mutation was 38 years old and exhibited an increased level of cancer antigen 125 (45.4 U/ml), while the patient with the CARD11 p.E54Q mutation was 46 years old and exhibited no other gynecological conditions. Evolutionary conservation analysis and online prediction programs suggested that these mutations may be disease-causing. In summary, 4 novel somatic mutations in the CARD10 and CARD11 genes were identified from amongst 101 cases of ovarian endometriosis for the first time, these mutations may serve active roles in the development of ovarian endometriosis.