Quantitative Analysis of Amino Acids

Amino acid is a general term for a class of organic compounds containing amino and carboxyl groups, and it is an essential substance for almost all living organisms. Recent years, more and more studies have confirmed that certain amino acids in the body can not only be used as substrates for protein synthesis, but also can regulate many life activities in the body through the biological activities of themselves and their metabolites, such as Regulate lipid metabolism and glucose metabolism, maintaining the homeostasis of the body's internal environment, synthesize nitric oxide, nucleic acid hormones and neurotransmitters to affect nerves and endocrine, regulate cell gene expression and signal transduction, immunity, antioxidant, anti-stress, etc.

Application Fields

Medicine research

Disease marker filtering，Etiology and pathological mechanism exploration，Disease recurrence diagnosis，Disease diagnosis and classify，Clinical efficacy evaluation，Pharmacotoxicological evaluation

Life science research

Research on abiotic environment relationship, metabolic pathway and functional genome research, plant and microorganism research, application in medicinal plant research, application in phenotypic identification

Sample Requirements

Animal tissue ≥ 0.1g
Soil ≥ 10g
Saliva ≥ 1ml
Serum, plasma ≥ 0.1ml
Urine ≥ 0.1ml
Plant tissue ≥ 2g
Stool ≥ 0.1g
Microorganisms ≥ 0.12g
Cells ≥ 5×10⁶
Dry ice shipping

Store in liquid nitrogen or -80°C

Case Analysis

Alterations in Serum Amino-acid Profile in the Progression of Colorectal Cancer: Associations with Systemic Inflammation, Tumour Stage and Patient Survival

Journal: British Journal of Cancer Impact factor: 5.791 Published date: 2019 Published by: University of Oulu, Finland

Research Background

Cancer cachexia is a complex wasting syndrome affecting patients with advanced cancer, with systemic inflammation as a key component in pathogenesis. Protein degradation and release of amino acids (AAs) in skeletal muscle are stimulated in cachexia.

Research Method

Serum levels of nine AAs were characterised in 336 CRC patients and their relationships with 20 markers of systemic inflammatory reaction, clinicopathological features of cancers and patient survival were analysed.

Research Result

Low serum glutamine and histidine levels and high phenylalanine levels associated with indicators of systemic inflammation, including high modified Glasgow Prognostic Score, high blood neutrophil/lymphocyte ratio and high serum levels of CRP, IL-6 and IL-8. Low levels of serum glutamine, histidine, alanine and high glycine levels also associated with advanced cancer stage and with poor cancer-specific survival in univariate analysis.

The relationship between serum amino acid level and mGPS

Two-dimensional visualization of the relationship between serum amino acid levels and serum cytokine levels

Kaplan-Meier survival curves of cancer-specific survival in patients with low and high levels of serum glutamine a, histidine b, phenylalanine c, and glycine d

Conclusion

Serum AA levels are associated with systemic inflammation and disease stage. These findings may reflect muscle catabolism induced by systemic inflammation in CRC.

Reference

Sirniö Päivi,Väyrynen Juha P,Klintrup Kai et al. Alterations in serum amino-acid profile in the progression of colorectal cancer: associations with systemic inflammation, tumour stage and patient survival.[J] .Br. J. Cancer, 2019, 120: 238-246