Abstract: Objective: Metabolomics based on ultra-high performance liquid chromatography-quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (UPLC-Q/TOF-MS) was applied to explore the metabolic changes in the urine of mice with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) after intervention with camellia oil. Methods: Mice were randomly divided into four groups: normal control, AD model, positive drug and camellia oil treatment. In all mice except for those in the control group, AD was induced by amyloid β-protein (Aβ) 25-35 peptide, and urine samples were collected from each group for UPLC-Q/TOF-MS analysis after protein precipitation. The obtain urine metabolite data were analyzed by the SIMCA-P14.1 software with principal component analysis (PCA) and orthogonal partial least squares-discriminant analysis (OPLS-DA). Using the online databases of HMBD, MassBank, MetaboAnalyst and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG), biomarker identification, pathway enrichment analysis, and metabolic network construction were conducted. Results: In the PCA score plots, the camellia oil group was clearly separated from the model group and closer to the normal group. Totally 48 biomarkers were identified and the major pathways involved were taurine and hypotaurine metabolism, arginine and proline metabolism, cysteine and methionine metabolism, alanine, aspartate and glutamate metabolism. Conclusion: Camellia oil can improve the metabolism of AD mice by regulating energy metabolism, amino acid metabolism and other pathways, which provides a reference for further study of camellia oil intervention against AD.

Key words: metabolomics; camellia oil; mice; urine; Alzheimer’s disease