Abhishek Jain, PhD, ME, BEngSci

This was the first comprehensive study to optimize normalization approaches for accurate quantification of metabolites in DBS. The strength of this approach compared to other DBS metabolomics studies is the comparative analysis of five different normalization methods using multiple criteria. The criteria used for assessment include: the capability of a method to reduce intragroup variability, effect of the method on differential metabolic analysis, and the influence of the method on classification accuracy. This study constitutes an important advancement over previous studies, which have used only a single method and single criteria to normalize the DBS metabolome. Additionally, we introduced a novel normalization strategy and showed that SG can serve as a predictor of Hb. This relationship was also validated in an independent group

Targeted analysis of individual sulfated metabolome changes based on 235 compounds 1.The recombinant overexpressed arylsulfatase ASPC as a new tool for investigation of host-microbiota co-metabolism. 2. ASPC has similar substrate promiscuity and versatility than the commonly used arylsulfatase from Helix pomatia. 3. Arylsulfatases ASPC and extracted arylsulfatase from H. pomatia equally hydrolyzed more than 100 sulfated compounds. 4. 27 Metabolites of microbial origin were detected. 5. Hydrolysis of 21 metabolites solely by ASPC enhances the sulfated metabolome coverage.

The interaction between diet and gut microbiota, and ultimately their link to health, has turned into the concentration of huge research. However, this relationship still needs to be fully characterized, particularly in case of the Asian population. We compared the fecal bacterial diversity and composition of healthy Indian and Chinese adults, ages 22–35 years, using next-generation sequencing analysis on IlluminaHiSeq 2500 platform. Our analysis revealed unique community structure, dominant Firmicutes, Actinobacteria and underrepresented Bacteroides, of Indian and Chinese gut bacteria. This community structure closely matched with the gut bacterial composition of the Russian population. Therefore, we hypothesized that enrichment of these bacterial clades is supported by high consumption of starch-rich diet such as rice, potato, refined grains. The dominance of genus Bifidobacterium due to carbohydrate-rich diet is another notable feature of this study. Moreover, Indian gut bacteria are significantly represented by Bacteroidetes and Prevotella, in contrast to Chinese, which could be associated with whole grains and plant based vegetarian diet of Indians. The gut bacterial population of Indian adults were as diverse as Chinese adults but a significant difference was noticed in gut bacterial composition and relative abundance between two populations.