Kaur Gagandeep, Ji Xiangming, Rahman Irfan
Department of Environmental Medicine, University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, NY 14642, USA.
Department of Nutrition, Byrdine F. Lewis School of Nursing and Health Professions, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA 30302, USA.
Metabolites. 2021 Sep 28;11(10):659. doi: 10.3390/metabo11100659.
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has so far infected hundreds of million individuals, with several million deaths worldwide. The lack of understanding of the disease pathophysiology and the host's immune response has resulted in this rapid spread of the disease on a global scale. In this respect, we employed UPLC-MS to compare the metabolites in the serum from COVID-19-positive patients and COVID-19-recovered subjects to determine the metabolic changes responsible for an infection. Our investigations revealed significant increase in the levels of serum phospholipids including sphingomyelins, phosphatidylcholines and arachidonic acid in the serum of COVID-19-positive patients as compared to COVID-19-recovered individuals. We further show increased levels of tryptophan and its metabolites in the serum of COVID-19-positive patients thus emphasizing the role of tryptophan metabolism in the disease pathogenesis of COVID-19. Future studies are required to determine the changes in the lipid and tryptophan metabolism at various stages of COVID-19 disease development, progression and recovery to better understand the host-pathogen interaction and the long-term effects of a severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV2) infection in humans.
2019冠状病毒病（COVID-19）迄今为止已感染数亿人，在全球造成数百万人死亡。对该疾病病理生理学和宿主免疫反应的认识不足导致了这种疾病在全球范围内的迅速传播。在这方面，我们采用超高效液相色谱-质谱联用技术（UPLC-MS）比较COVID-19阳性患者和康复者血清中的代谢物，以确定与感染相关的代谢变化。我们的研究发现，与COVID-19康复者相比，COVID-19阳性患者血清中的鞘磷脂、磷脂酰胆碱和花生四烯酸等血清磷脂水平显著升高。我们还进一步表明，COVID-19阳性患者血清中色氨酸及其代谢物水平升高，从而强调了色氨酸代谢在COVID-19疾病发病机制中的作用。需要进一步的研究来确定COVID-19疾病发展、进展和康复各阶段脂质和色氨酸代谢的变化，以便更好地理解宿主与病原体的相互作用以及严重急性呼吸综合征冠状病毒2（SARS-CoV2）感染对人类的长期影响。
