Cell Metabolomics Study of Hg( II) Ion Effect on the Metabolic Pathways of Cells

Mercury is harmful for human that can cause many diseases. But how it causes the disease and if any protective response from cell metabolism happens remain unclear till now. In this work, we analyzed the metabolomics of Hela cells treated with Hg(II) ion by ultra-performance liquid chromatography-high resolution mass spectrometry. Totally 16 metabolites have been found to change significantly during Hg(II) ion treatment by the facility of orthogonal partial least squares discriminant analysis (OPLS-DA). The results showed that Hg() ion could impact many metabolic reactions including energy metabolism, phospholipid metabolism, fatty acid metabolism, amino acid metabolism and nucleic acid metabolism. But cells also had some stress reactions to protect themselves from Hg(II) ion damage.