Metabolomic profiles of current cigarette smokers

Smoking-related biomarkers for lung cancer and other diseases are needed to enhance early detection strategies and to provide a science base for tobacco product regulation. An untargeted metabolomics approach by ultra-performance liquid chromatography-quadrupole-time of flight mass spectrometry (UHPLC-Q-TOF MS) totaling 957 assays was used in a novel experimental design where 105 current smokers smoked two cigarettes 1 h apart. Blood was collected immediately before and after each cigarette allowing for within-subject replication. Dynamic changes of the metabolomic profiles from smokers’ four blood samples were observed and biomarkers affected by cigarette smoking were identified. Thirty-one metabolites were definitively shown to be affected by acute effect of cigarette smoking, uniquely including menthol-glucuronide, the reduction of glutamate, oleamide, and 13 glycerophospholipids. This first time identification of a menthol metabolite in smokers’ blood serves as proof-of-principle for using metabolomics to identify new tobacco-exposure biomarkers, and also provides new opportunities in studying menthol-containing tobacco products in humans. Gender and race differences also were observed. Network analysis revealed 12 molecules involved in cancer, notably inhibition of cAMP. These novel tobacco-related biomarkers provide new insights to the effects of smoking which may be important in carcinogenesis but not previously linked with tobacco-related diseases.