Untargeted metabolomics reveals different postprandial serum metabolome profiles after single intake of Vaccinium myrtillus and Vaccinium corymbosum.

The aim of this research is the application of an untargeted liquid chromatography-high resolution tandem mass spectrometry (LC-HRMS) platform on the analysis of serum significant metabolites in healthy volunteers after the administration of V. myrtillus (VM) and V. corymbosum (VC) berry supplements, being the widest consumed Vaccinium species. Under these experimental conditions, the selection of statistically significant features and their in-depth annotation process performed by advanced bioinformatics tools allowed to identify twelve relevant serum metabolites suitable to the discrimination of VM and VC intakes, belonging to the categories of purine pathway metabolites, benzoic and benzodiol metabolites, indole alkaloids, abscisic acid derivatives, organic acids, and fatty acids. Hydroxy-hippuric acid and azelaic acid were annotated at level I, whereas the annotation of majority of the remaining metabolites was deepened up to level II. In addition, this study permitted to significantly distinguish metabolome profiles between two berries supplementation, discriminated by abscisic acid glucuronide, citric acid, hydroxy hippuric acid and methyl-catechol sulphate.