Recent advances in nonalcoholic fatty liver disease metabolomics

Abstract

The clinical phenotypes of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) encompass from simple steatosis to nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) with varying degrees of fibrosis or cirrhosis. Liver biopsy has been the standard to diagnose NASH. However, there has been strong need for precise and accurate noninvasive tests because of invasiveness and sampling variability of biopsy. Metabolomics has drawn attention as a promising diagnostic methodology in the field of NAFLD, particularly to unravel metabolic alterations which plays relevant roles in the progression of NASH. There have been numerous metabolomics researches to find new biomarker of NASH in the last decade, fueled by the recent advances in the metabolomics methodology. This review briefly covers recent research advances on the lipidomics, amino acids and bile acid metabolomics regarding continuing attempts to discover relevant biomarkers for NASH.

Keywords: Amino acids; Bile acids and salts; Fatty liver; Lipids; Phenotype.

Figure 1.

Metabolomics and prediction of NAFLD phenotypes. NAFL, nonalcoholic fatty liver; NASH, nonalcoholic steatohepatitis; NAFLD, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease; BCAA, branched-chain amino acid; AAA, aromatic amino acid; GCA, glycocholic acid; TCA, taurocholic acid; Phe, phenylalanine; BA, bile acid.