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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2013 Jun 1.
Published in final edited form as: Expert Rev Proteomics. 2012 Aug;9(4):425–436. doi: 10.1586/epr.12.38

Figure 1. Alcohol biomarkers must transition from single analyte markers to multianalyte panels able to discern between ranges of alcohol drinking.

Figure 1

Traditional unitary biomarkers can be replaced by marker panels sampling all body compartments. Most traditional unitary biomarkers represent a single anatomical compartment. A multianalyte biomarker panel could discern between diverse drinking behaviors and patterns (e.g., nondrinkers, nonabusive drinkers and excessive drinkers), versus simply differentiating between nondrinkers and excessive drinkers. A unitary marker of alcohol use and abuse may not be able to discriminate between modest drinking and abusive drinking. On the other hand, the incorporation of additional analytes permits the separation of heavy and light drinking. Indeed, with multidimensional statistical methods, we can theoretically incorporate large numbers of analytes into a biomarker panel.

5-HIAA: 5-hydroxyindole-3-acetic acid; 5-HTOL: 5-hydroxytryptophol; β-HEX: β-hexosaminidase; ALT: Alanine aminotranferease; AST: Aspartate aminotransferase; CDT: Carbohydrate-deficient transferrin; EtG: Ethyl glucuronide; FAEE: Fatty acid ethyl ester; GGT: γ-glutamyl transferase; MCV: Mean corpuscular volume; PEth: Phosphatidylethanol.