PR001047 (Project)

Description:The mammalian brain relies on neurochemistry to fulfill its functions. Yet, the complexity of the brain metabolome and its changes during diseases or aging remains poorly understood. To start bridging this gap, we generated a metabolome atlas of the aging mouse brain from 10 anatomical regions spanning from adolescence to late adulthood. We combined data from three chromatography-based mass spectrometry assays and structurally annotated 1,709 metabolites to reveal the underlying architecture of aging-induced changes in the brain metabolome. Overall differences between sexes were minimal. We found 94% of all metabolites to significantly differ between brain sections in at least one age group. We also discovered that 90% of the metabolome showed significant changes with respect to age groups. For example, we identified a shift in sphingolipid patterns during aging that is related to myelin remodeling in the transition from adolescent to adult brains. This shift was accompanied by large changes in overall signature in a range of other metabolic pathways. We found clear metabolic similarities in brain sections that were functionally related such as brain stem, cerebrum and cerebellum. In cerebrum, metabolic correlation patterns got markedly weaker in the transition from adolescent to ear adults, whereas correlation patterns between cerebrum and brainstem regions decreased from early to late adulthood. We were also able to map metabolic changes to gene and protein brain atlases to link molecular changes to metabolic brain phenotypes. Metabolic profiles can be investigated via https://atlas.metabolomics.us/. This new resource enables brain researchers to link new metabolomic studies to a foundation data set.