Centro de Metabolómica y Bioanálisis (CEMBIO), Facultad de Farmacia, Universidad San Pablo-CEU, CEU Universities, Urbanización Montepríncipe, Boadilla del Monte, 28660 Madrid, Spain.
Servicio de Enfermedades Infecciosas, IRYCIS, Hospital Universitario Ramón y Cajal and CIBERInf, Carretera de Colmenar Viejo km 9.100, 28034 Madrid, Spain.
J Proteome Res. 2022 Mar 4;21(3):623-634. doi: 10.1021/acs.jproteome.1c00786. Epub 2022 Feb 8.
Despite the scientific and human efforts to understand COVID-19, there are questions still unanswered. Variations in the metabolic reaction to SARS-CoV-2 infection could explain the striking differences in the susceptibility to infection and the risk of severe disease. Here, we used untargeted metabolomics to examine novel metabolic pathways related to SARS-CoV-2 susceptibility and COVID-19 clinical severity using capillary electrophoresis coupled to a time-of-flight mass spectrometer (CE-TOF-MS) in plasma samples. We included 27 patients with confirmed COVID-19 and 29 healthcare workers heavily exposed to SARS-CoV-2 but with low susceptibility to infection ("nonsusceptible"). We found a total of 42 metabolites of SARS-CoV-2 susceptibility or COVID-19 clinical severity. We report the discovery of new plasma biomarkers for COVID-19 that provide mechanistic explanations for the clinical consequences of SARS-CoV-2, including mitochondrial and liver dysfunction as a consequence of hypoxemia (citrulline, citric acid, and 3-aminoisobutyric acid (BAIBA)), energy production and amino acid catabolism (phenylalanine and histidine), and endothelial dysfunction and thrombosis (citrulline, asymmetric dimethylarginine (ADMA), and 2-aminobutyric acid (2-AB)), and we found interconnections between these pathways. In summary, in this first report several metabolic pathways implicated in SARS-CoV-2 susceptibility and COVID-19 clinical progression were found by CE-MS based metabolomics that could be developed as biomarkers of COVID-19.
尽管科学界和人类为了解 COVID-19 做出了巨大努力,但仍有一些问题尚未得到解答。SARS-CoV-2 感染引起的代谢反应差异可能解释了感染易感性和严重疾病风险的显著差异。在这里,我们使用非靶向代谢组学方法,使用毛细管电泳与飞行时间质谱仪(CE-TOF-MS)检测与 SARS-CoV-2 易感性和 COVID-19 临床严重程度相关的新型代谢途径。我们纳入了 27 名确诊的 COVID-19 患者和 29 名大量接触 SARS-CoV-2 但感染易感性低的医护人员(“不易感”)。我们总共发现了 42 种与 SARS-CoV-2 易感性或 COVID-19 临床严重程度相关的代谢物。我们报告了 COVID-19 的新血浆生物标志物的发现,这些标志物为 SARS-CoV-2 的临床后果提供了机制解释,包括缺氧引起的线粒体和肝功能障碍(瓜氨酸、柠檬酸和 3-氨基异丁酸(BAIBA))、能量产生和氨基酸分解代谢(苯丙氨酸和组氨酸)以及内皮功能障碍和血栓形成(瓜氨酸、不对称二甲基精氨酸(ADMA)和 2-氨基丁酸(2-AB)),并且我们发现这些途径之间存在相互联系。总之,在这项首次报告中,通过基于 CE-MS 的代谢组学发现了几种与 SARS-CoV-2 易感性和 COVID-19 临床进展相关的代谢途径,这些途径可能被开发为 COVID-19 的生物标志物。