OT05 - Age-Associated Changes in the Global, Untargeted Serum Metabolome of Healthy Client-Owned Domestic Cats

Abstract:

Background: With veterinary medical advances, the cat population is aging. To distinguish health from disease, understanding age-related metabolism is indicated. Metabolomics, which profiles biomolecules, is routinely used for biomarker discovery.Hypothesis/

Objectives: We compared the global, untargeted serum metabolome of clinically-healthy young adult versus mature/senior cats using three multivariate approaches.Animals: Healthy, sterilized (male and female) client-owned cats (n = 7 young adult, aged

Methods: The serum metabolome was established by Metabolon© using ultra-high performance liquid chromatography tandem mass-spectrometry. Metabolite abundances were compared between young and mature/senior cats using a Wilcoxon test, partial least squares regression discriminant analysis variable importance projections (VIP), and random forest mean decrease accuracies (MDA). Metabolites were called meaningful contributors to age differences based on the following criteria: p 1, and/or MDA > 0.001094.

Results: In total, 914 metabolites were detected, including 209 metabolites differentially-abundant between young versus senior cats. These included 37 amino acids, 2 carbohydrates,13 cofactors/vitamins, 75 lipids, 7 nucleotides, 8 peptides, 37 xenobiotics, and 30 unknown metabolites. A total of 183 metabolites were meaningful contributors to age differences in one model, 20 in two models, and 6 in all three models.Conclusions and clinical importance: Aging influences the healthy feline serum metabolome across diverse chemical classes. These changes, along with their multivariate detection approach, should be considered when discriminating between life stages.