Metabonomic analysis of hepatitis B virus-induced liver failure:identification of potential diagnostic biomarkers by fuzzy support vector machine

Hepatitis B virus(HBV)-induced liver failure is an emergent liver disease leading to high mortality.The severity of liver failure may be reflected by the profile of some metabolites.This study assessed the potential of using metabolites as bio- markers for liver failure by identifying metabolites with good discriminative performance for its phenotype.The serum samples from 24 HBV-induced liver failure patients and 23 healthy volunteers were collected and analyzed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry(GC-MS)to generate metabolite profiles.The 24 patients were further grouped into two classes according to the severity of liver failure.Twenty-five commensal peaks in all metabolite profiles were extracted,and the relative area values of these peaks were used as features for each sample.Three algorithms,F-test,k-nearest neighbor(KNN)and fuzzy support vector machine(FSVM)combined with exhaustive search(ES),were employed to identify a subset of metabolites(biomarkers)that best predict liver failure.Based on the achieved experimental dataset,93.62%predictive accuracy by 6 features was selected with FSVM-ES and three key metabolites,glyceric acid,cis-aconitic acid and citric acid,are identified as potential diagnostic bio- markers.

A New Concept on Quality Marker for Quality Assessment and Process Control of Chinese Medicines

Chinese medicine （CM） is the most typical conventional therapy compared with any other traditional or alternative medicine systems. The active components of CMs are either primary or secondary metabolites generated by metabolic and biosynthetic enzymes in plants, protecting the plants from environmental stress. The characteristics of these metabolites are diverse, complicated and unique. In this paper, current approaches for quality assessment were extensively reviewed, a new concept of quality marker （Q-marker） was then proposed for CM quality assessment. Additionally, definition of the Q-marker, as well as the relevant methods, were discussed, on the basis of the biosynthetic pathways of secondary metabolites and source of biological active components. Study design of Q-marker is complex system for quality assessment and production process control of CM products with transitivity and traceability. Therefore, the system with characteristics of transmission and traceability is expected to be established for regulation of quality. Upon the concept which the transitivity and traceability in the quality assessment and production process control covered the entire process, such as raw materials, decoction slices, processing, extraction and production can be further enhanced. The transitivity and traceability will inevitably require close attention to ＂who, what, where, when, and why＂ details at each stage of Q-markers of CM production form raw materials to patent product. The establishing quality standards are enablers of many and various transitivity and traceability solutions, not a solution in them. It means that the transitivity and traceability system is readily link between products and across borders in quality. According to the thinking mode and methods of investigation on quality assessment of CM product, we focus on the entire process, in terms of safety and effectiveness and quality control. The standard preparation of CM or CM decoction is not only the basis for study of Q-marker, but also the basis for transmission and traceability of the quality of CM product.