Aims/hypothesis
To understand the complex metabolic changes that occur long before the diagnosis of type 2 diabetes, we investigated differences in metabolomic profiles in plasma between prediabetic and normoglycaemic individuals for subtypes of prediabetes defined by fasting glucose, 2 h glucose and HbA
1c
measures.
Methods
Untargeted metabolomics data were obtained from 155 plasma samples from 127 Mexican American individuals from Starr County, TX, USA. None had type 2 diabetes at the time of sample collection and 69 had prediabetes by at least one criterion. We tested statistical associations of amino acids and other metabolites with each subtype of prediabetes.
Results
We identified distinctive differences in amino acid profiles between prediabetic and normoglycaemic individuals, with further differences in amino acid levels among subtypes of prediabetes. When testing all named metabolites, several fatty acids were also significantly associated with 2 h glucose levels. Multivariate discriminative analyses show that untargeted metabolomic data have considerable potential for identifying metabolic differences among subtypes of prediabetes.
Conclusions/interpretation
People with each subtype of prediabetes have a distinctive metabolomic signature, beyond the well-known differences in branched-chain amino acids.
Data availability
Metabolomics data are available through the NCBI database of Genotypes and Phenotypes (dbGaP, accession number phs001166;
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/projects/gap/cgi-bin/study.cgi?study_id=phs001166.v1.p1
)....

Metabolomic profiles associated with subtypes of prediabetes among Mexican Americans in Starr County, Texas, USA

10.1007/s00125-019-05031-4