Dr. Tuulia Hyotylainen wins HTC-12 Award

Dr. Tuulia Hyotylainen of the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland has won the HTC-12  Award for her state-of-the-arty presentation - an abstract of which follows below:

Comprehensive metabolic profiling by multidimensional and hyphenated chromatographic techniques

Tuulia Hyötyläinen

Sirkku Jäntti¹, Maarit Kivilompolo¹, Artturi Koivuniemi¹, Ismo Mattila¹, Tuulikki Seppänen-Laakso¹, Heli Nygren¹, Kirsi Pietiläinen,^2,3 Hannele Yki-Järvinen⁴, Matej Orešič¹, Tuulia Hyötyläinen¹

¹VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, Espoo, FI-02044 VTT, Finland

² Department of Psychiatry, Helsinki University Central Hospital, Helsinki, Finland

³ Department of Public Health, University of Helsinki, Finland

4Department of Medicine, Division of Diabetes, Helsinki, Finland

Obesity is associated with multiple adverse health effects and a high risk of developing metabolic and cardiovascular diseases, such as diabetes and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NALFD). Obesity causes severe changes in the metabolic balance, however, the exact mechanisms by which obesity contributes to various disturbances is poorly characterised. Here, we have studied several key aspects of the metabolic mechanisms in obesity, with study groups including both large clinical cohorts, and small targeted group of individuals, such as study monozygotic twins discordant for obesity, and obese individual undergoing hepatic venous catheterization.  Metabolic profiling of serum, lipoprotein fractions as well as adipose tissue biopsies were utilised to allow detailed characterization of the metabolic processes associated with obesity. For the detailed characterisation of changes in the metabolic profiles, both non-targeted and targeted methodologies, utilising several chromatographic methodologies combined with mass spectrometry were applied. The global lipid profiles in serum and adipose tissue were profiled with UPLC-QTOFMS, while polar small metabolites were determined by GCxGC-TOFMS. Targeted methods using UPLC-QQQMS were developed for the analysis of bile acids in serum and eicosanoids and steroids in adipose tissue. Information gathered from these studies was used for modelling as well as molecular dynamics simulations. The results show that in obese individuals, adaptation of adipocyte membranes to adipose tissue expansion associates with positive energy balance, potentially leading to higher vulnerability to inflammation in acquired obesity.  Also, we have identified serum markers for NALFD and characterised the effect of liver fat on several key metabolic pathways in liver metabolism.