Evaluation of metabolite profiles as biomarkers for the pharmacological effects of thiazolidinediones in Type 2 diabetes mellitus patients and healthy volunteers.

* Many studies have investigated the effects of thiazolidinediones on isolated biochemical markers (biomarkers) or sets of markers in Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) patients and healthy volunteers. * However, a limited number of parameters is not capable of capturing the broad response to pharmacological intervention with these types of (pleiotropic) drugs, which are known to activate the nuclear transcription factor peroxisome proliferator activated receptor gamma (PPARgamma). * Our study tested the new hypothesis (primary objective) that nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR)-based metabolomics, capable of providing a readout of global metabolite concentrations in biofluids, could provide a better (more holistic) picture of the the multiparametric response to pharmacological intervention with a PPARgamma agonist and thus yield a broad array of biomarkers ('fingerprint') that could be used to support and expedite clinical development of novel thiazolidinediones.