An untargeted metabolomics investigation in liver of flaviviruses-infected mice.

Dengue virus (DENV), Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV) and Zika virus (ZIKV) are the three most important flaviviruses, which can cause health problems worldwide. All these flaviviruses can cause liver damage, however, the mechanism of liver injury is still unclear. Metabolomics can give insight into the full complexity of a disease. In our study, we used an LC-MS method to analysis the metabolites in liver samples of the three flaviviruses-infected mice and the non-infected mice. Compared with the control mice, the liver of the DENV-infected, JEV-infected, and ZIKV-infected mice had 32, 34, and 55 differential metabolites. We also found that there were obvious differences in some metabolic pathways among the four groups. Metabonomic analysis of liver is very important for understanding the pathogenesis of flaviviruses.