Statistical relationship between metabolic profilces of human urine and gut microbiota

Scientists in the metabonomics group at the Wuhan Institute of Physics and Mathematics have made progress in metabonomic analysis including method development and applications in collaboration with national and international scientists. Following some method developments in metabonomic urinalyses, they developed a method for studying the interactions between human ur ina ry me t abonome and symbiotic gut microbiota (microbiome) and established some statistical correlations between microbiome and human urinary metabonome. The results were published in PNAS [Li et al., 2008, 105:2117-2122] which was later commented by Nature Reviews Microbiology as Research Highlights and cited widely by papers published in Nature, Cell and their serial journals. In a metabonomic study on the intact human gut biopsies using magic-angle spinning (MAS) NMR and 1H-31P heteronuclear statistical total correlation spectroscopy methods published in Analytical Chemistry [Wang et al., 2008, 80:1058-1066], the scientists reported, for the first time, discovery of ascobate-glutathione cycle in intestinal tissues which was only found in plants previously.