Sex-specific urinary biomarkers for diagnosing bipolar disorder

PLoS One. 2014 Dec 22;9(12):e115221. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0115221. eCollection 2014.

Abstract

Sex-based differences are prominent in affective disorders, but there are no biomarkers available to support sex-specific, laboratory-based diagnostics for male and female bipolar disorder (BD) patients. Here, a NMR-based metabonomic approach was used to preliminarily identify sex-specific urinary metabolite biomarkers for diagnosing male and female BD patients. A male-specific biomarker panel consisting of four metabolites (α-hydroxybutyrate, choline, formate, and N-methylnicotinamide) effectively discriminated between male BD and healthy controls (HC) subjects, achieving an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) of 0.942. A female-specific biomarkers panel consisting of four metabolites (α-hydroxybutyrate, oxalacetate, acetone, and N-methylnicotinamide) effectively discriminated between female BD and HC subjects, achieving an AUC of 0.909. The male-specific biomarker panel displayed low discriminatory power in the female group, and the female-specific biomarker panel displayed low discriminatory power in the male group. Moreover, several other metabolites showed different trends between male and female BD subjects. These findings suggest that male and female BD patients have distinct biomarker fingerprints and that these two sex-specific biomarker panels may serve as effective diagnostic tools in distinguishing male and female BD patients from their healthy counterparts. Our work may provide a window into the mechanisms underlying the pathoetiology of BD in both men and women.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Acetone / metabolism
  • Acetone / urine
  • Adolescent
  • Adult
  • Area Under Curve
  • Biomarkers / metabolism
  • Biomarkers / urine*
  • Bipolar Disorder / diagnosis*
  • Discriminant Analysis
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Hydroxybutyrates / metabolism
  • Hydroxybutyrates / urine
  • Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy
  • Male
  • Metabolome
  • Niacinamide / analogs & derivatives
  • Niacinamide / metabolism
  • Niacinamide / urine
  • Oxaloacetic Acid / metabolism
  • Oxaloacetic Acid / urine
  • ROC Curve
  • Young Adult

Substances

  • Biomarkers
  • Hydroxybutyrates
  • Acetone
  • Niacinamide
  • Oxaloacetic Acid
  • N-methylnicotinamide

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the Chongqing Science & Technology Commission (cstc2014jcyjA10102), the National Youth Division (31300881), the Postdoctoral Fund (XM201101003), and the National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program, grant no. 2009CB918300). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.