Alterations of Plasma Lysophosphatidylcholine Species in Obesity and Weight Loss

• Published in: PloS one Vol. 9; no. 10; p. e111348
• Main Authors: Heimerl, Susanne, Fischer, Marcus, Baessler, Andrea, Liebisch, Gerhard, Sigruener, Alexander, Wallner, Stefan, Schmitz, Gerd
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Public Library of Science 23.10.2014; Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subjects: Adult; Alterations; Atherosclerosis; Biology and Life Sciences; Body mass; Body Mass Index; Body size; Body weight loss; C-reactive protein; Cardiovascular disease; Case-Control Studies; Cholesterol; Comparative analysis; Coronary vessels; Diabetes; Female; Health problems; Humans; Inflammation; Inflammation - blood; Insulin Resistance; Internal medicine; Ionization; Ions; Laboratories; Lipid metabolism; Lipids; Lipoproteins; Lysophosphatidylcholine; Lysophosphatidylcholines - blood; Male; Mass spectrometry; Mass spectroscopy; Medicine; Medicine and Health Sciences; Metabolic disorders; Metabolic syndrome; Metabolic Syndrome - blood; Metabolism; Middle Aged; Mortality; Nutrition research; Obesity; Obesity - blood; Phenotype; Phospholipids; Population; Scientific imaging; Sepsis; Species; Spectrometry, Mass, Electrospray Ionization; Systematic review; Tandem Mass Spectrometry; Triglycerides; Weight control; Weight Loss; Weight Reduction Programs; Germany
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0111348

Obesity and related diseases of the metabolic syndrome contribute to the major health problems in industrialized countries. Alterations in the metabolism of lipid classes and lipid species may significantly be involved in these metabolic overload diseases. However, little is known about specific lipid species in this syndrome and existing data are contradictive. In this study, we quantified plasma lipid species by electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry (ESI-MS/MS) in obese subjects before and after 3 month weight loss as well as in a control group. The comparison of obese subjects with control subjects before weight loss revealed significantly lower lysophosphatidylcholine (LPC) concentrations in obesity. LPC concentrations did not significantly increase during the observed period in the weight loss group. Analysis of LPC species revealed a decrease of most species in obesity and negative correlations with C-reactive protein (CRP) and body mass index (BMI). Correlating BMI ratio before and after weight loss with the ratio of total LPC and individual LPC species revealed significant negative relationships of LPC ratios with BMI ratio. Our findings contribute to the contradictive discussion of the role of LPC in obesity and related chronic inflammation strongly supporting pre-existing data in the literature that show a decrease of LPC species in plasma of obese and a potentially anti-inflammatory role in these subjects.