2nd Respiratory Medicine Department, Attikon University Hospital, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens Medical School, Athens, Greece.
J Breath Res. 2020 Jul 3;14(3):036007. doi: 10.1088/1752-7163/ab9220.
Asthma is a heterogeneous disease with diverse severity and represents a considerable socio-economic burden. Exhaled Breath Condensate (EBC) is a biofluid directly obtained from the airway lining fluid non-invasively. We attempted to discriminate severe from mild-to-moderate asthma using EBC metabolomics based on both NMR and UHPLC-MS techniques. 36 patients were included in this study (15 patients with severe and 21 with mild-to-moderate asthma). EBC was collected and analyzed using both NMR and UHPLC-MS techniques for possible metabolites. Using PLS and oPLS analysis for the UHPLC-MS data, no metabolite was found to be sufficient for the discrimination of asthma severity. However, when another PLS-regression model was applied five metabolites were found to discriminate severe from mild-to-moderate asthma. Amino-acid lysine was the only metabolite that discriminated the two study groups using NMR data (p= 0.04, t-test with Welch's correction, AUC 0.66). EBC is an easily available biofluid which directly represents the lower airways but difficult-to-use for metabolomic analysis. Our study presents some encouraging findings for the discrimination of asthma severity subgroups using EBC metabolomics but more well-designed studies with a higher number of patients need to be conducted.
哮喘是一种异质性疾病，具有不同的严重程度，代表了相当大的社会经济负担。呼出气冷凝液（EBC）是一种直接从气道衬里液中无创获得的生物流体。我们试图使用基于 NMR 和 UHPLC-MS 技术的 EBC 代谢组学来区分重度和轻中度哮喘。本研究纳入了 36 名患者（15 名重度哮喘患者和 21 名轻中度哮喘患者）。使用 NMR 和 UHPLC-MS 技术收集和分析 EBC 以寻找可能的代谢物。使用 PLS 和 oPLS 分析 UHPLC-MS 数据，未发现有代谢物足以区分哮喘严重程度。然而，当应用另一个 PLS 回归模型时，发现有 5 种代谢物可区分重度和轻中度哮喘。氨基酸赖氨酸是使用 NMR 数据区分两组研究的唯一代谢物（p=0.04，具有 Welch 校正的 t 检验，AUC 为 0.66）。EBC 是一种易于获得的生物流体，它直接代表下呼吸道，但代谢组学分析较难使用。我们的研究为使用 EBC 代谢组学区分哮喘严重程度亚组提供了一些令人鼓舞的发现，但需要进行更多设计良好、患者数量更多的研究。
