Comprehensive Metabolomics Study in Children With Graves' Disease.

OBJECTIVE

Graves' disease (GD) related hyperthyroidism (HT) has profound effects on metabolic activity and metabolism of macromolecules affecting energy homeostasis. In this study, we aimed to get a comprehensive understanding of the metabolic changes and their clinical relevance in GD children.

METHODS

We investigated serum substances from 30 newly diagnosed GD children and 30 age- and gender-matched healthy controls. We explored the metabolomics using ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography-quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (UHPLC-QTOF/MS) analysis, and then analyzed the metabolomic data multivariate statistical analysis.

RESULTS

By untargeted metabolomic analysis, a total of 730 metabolites were identified in all participants, among which 48 differential metabolites between GD and control groups were filtered out, including amino acids, dipeptides, lipids, purines, etc. Among these metabolites, 33 were detected with higher levels, while 15 with lower levels in GD group compared to controls. Pathway analysis showed that HT had a significant impact on aminoacyl-transfer ribonucleic acid (tRNA) biosynthesis, several amino acids metabolism, purine metabolism, and pyrimidine metabolism.

CONCLUSION

In this study, untargeted metabolomics analysis, significant variations of serum metabolomic patterns were detected in GD children.