Influence of Cigarette Smoke Exposure on Metabolic Profiling in Rats

The influences of different cigarette smoke exposure on endogenous small molecular metabolome were evaluated by metabolomics research on the basis of liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry （LC/MS）. Plasma and urine samples from normal control rats, ordinary cigarette smoked rats and a certain commercial cigarette with herbal additives smoked rats were analyzed respectively to obtain the metabolic profiling. The rats were exposed to cigarette smoke for one week, half a month and one month. The data were processed by the method of partial least squares discriminant analysis (PLS-DA). The potential biomarkers were screened out according to VIP (variable importance in the projection) and identified by database and standards. The PLS-DA results at different cigarette smoke exposing periods showed that the metabolism of rats was affected by both ordinary cigarette smoke exposed group and the certain commercial cigarette smoke exposed group, mainly including phospholipid metabolism, energy metabolism and oxidative damage. However, the damage of the commercial cigarette smoked rats was lower than that of ordinary cigarette smoked rats. The relative concentration changes of some important biomarkers among the three groups, especially in one month, further confirmed that the herbal additives in the cigarette may relieve the influence of cigarette smoke on the holistic metabolome of rats, and improve their interfered metabolism, such us phospholipid and energy metabolism.