An evaluation of acute hydrogen sulfide poisoning in rats through serum metabolomics based on gas chromatography-mass spectrometry.

Hydrogen sulfide (H2S) is the second leading cause of toxin-related deaths in the operational site. Its main target organs of toxic effects are the central nervous system and respiratory system. In this study, we developed a serum metabonomic method, based on gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC/MS), to evaluate the effect of acute poisoning by hydrogen sulfide on rats. Pattern recognition analysis, including both principal component analysis (PCA) and partial least squares-discriminate analysis (PLS-DA), revealed that acute hydrogen sulfide poisoning induced metabolic perturbations. Compared to the control group, the level of urea, glucose, glyceryl stearate in rat serum of the poisoning group increased after two hours, and the level of glucose, docosahexaenoic acid, glyceryl stearate and arachidonic acid in rat serum of the poisoning group increased after 48 h, while the L-valine, galactose, L-tyrosine levels decreased. Our results indicate that metabonomic methods based on GC/MS may be useful to elucidate acute hydrogen sulfide poisoning through the exploration of biomarkers.