Monitoring the Response of the Human Urinary Metabolome to Brief Maximal Exercise by a Combination of RP-UPLC-MS and ¹H NMR Spectroscopy

Abstract

The delineation of exercise biochemistry by utilizing metabolic fingerprinting has become an established strategy. We present a combined RP-UPLC-MS and (1)H NMR strategy, supplemented by photometric assays, to monitor the response of the human urinary metabolome to short maximal exercise. Seventeen male volunteers performed two identical sprint sessions on separate days, consisting of three 80 m maximal runs. Using univariate and multivariate analyses, we followed the fluctuation of 37 metabolites at 1, 1.5, and 2 h postexercise. 2-Hydroxyisovalerate, 2-hydroxybutyrate, 2-oxoisocaproate, 3-methyl-2-oxovalerate, 3-hydroxyisobutyrate, 2-oxoisovalerate, 3-hydroxybutyrate, 2-hydroxyisobutyrate, alanine, pyruvate, and fumarate increased 1 h postexercise and then returned toward baseline. Lactate and acetate were higher than baseline at 1 and 1.5 h. Hypoxanthine and inosine remained above baseline throughout the postexercise period. Urate decreased at 1 h and increased at 1.5 h before returning to baseline. Valine, isoleucine, succinate, citrate, trimethylamine, trimethylamine N-oxide, tyrosine, and formate decreased at 1 h and/or 1.5 h postexercise and then returned to baseline. Creatinine gradually decreased over the sampling period. Glycine, 4-aminohippurate, and hippurate remained below baseline throughout the postexercise period. Our findings show that even one-half minute of maximal exercise elicited major perturbations in human metabolism, several of which persisted for at least 2 h.

Effects of Different Exercise Modes on the Urinary Metabolic Fingerprint of Men with and without Metabolic Syndrome

“…Changes indicate increased degradation of purines, carbohydrates, proteins, and amino acids with exercise. These results are in accordance with previous work from our group and others on the changes of the urinary metabolic fingerprint after acute exercise [45,46]. However, the present study included individuals with MetS, in addition to healthy non-athletes, three different exercise modes, and a 24 h follow-up.…”

Assessment of metabolic phenotypic variability in children’s urine using 1H NMR spectroscopy

“…Interestingly, sucrose which increases in night-time samples in our study, likely due to dietary intake, was proposed as a marker of sugar intake in an obese population28. Other metabolites are established to vary throughout the day due to physiological processes such as creatinine which fluctuates depending on glomerular filtration rate and physical activity2930. N- methyl nicotinamide in several studies was also shown to be high in the morning before breakfast, probably due to reduced enzymatic activity following fasting31.…”

Impact of Exercise and Aging on Rat Urine and Blood Metabolome. An LC-MS Based Metabolomics Longitudinal Study

“…The physiological [17] and metabolic [18] alterations derived from training are well-established and there are several studies which investigated these through a metabolic profiling approach. In both humans [19,20,21,22,23,24] and rodents [25,26,27,28,29,30,31,32,33,34], metabolomics-based studies decipher changes in amino acids, carbohydrates’ metabolism, Krebs cycle and lipids’ metabolism and other intermediates of biochemical pathways featured as energy providers. These findings on altered metabolism derived from exercise on humans were recently reviewed [35].…”