Medical Research Center, Yue Bei People's Hospital, Shantou University Medical College, Shaoguan, China.
The Central Laboratory, Yangjiang People's Hospital, Yangjiang, China.
Front Immunol. 2022 Jul 18;13:894170. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2022.894170. eCollection 2022.
The metabolic characteristics of COVID-19 disease are still largely unknown. Here, 44 patients with COVID-19 (31 mild COVID-19 patients and 13 severe COVID-19 patients), 42 healthy controls (HC), and 42 patients with community-acquired pneumonia (CAP), were involved in the study to assess their serum metabolomic profiles. We used widely targeted metabolomics based on an ultra-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS). The differentially expressed metabolites in the plasma of mild and severe COVID-19 patients, CAP patients, and HC subjects were screened, and the main metabolic pathways involved were analyzed. Multiple mature machine learning algorithms confirmed that the metabolites performed excellently in discriminating COVID-19 groups from CAP and HC subjects, with an area under the curve (AUC) of 1. The specific dysregulation of AMP, dGMP, -glycero-3-phosphocholine, and carnitine was observed in the severe COVID-19 group. Moreover, random forest analysis suggested that these metabolites could discriminate between severe COVID-19 patients and mild COVID-19 patients, with an AUC of 0.921. This study may broaden our understanding of pathophysiological mechanisms of COVID-19 and may offer an experimental basis for developing novel treatment strategies against it.
新型冠状病毒肺炎(COVID-19)的代谢特征仍知之甚少。本研究纳入 44 例 COVID-19 患者(31 例轻症 COVID-19 患者和 13 例重症 COVID-19 患者)、42 例健康对照者(HC)和 42 例社区获得性肺炎(CAP)患者,评估其血清代谢组学特征。我们采用基于超高效液相色谱-串联质谱(UPLC-MS/MS)的广泛靶向代谢组学方法。筛选轻症和重症 COVID-19 患者、CAP 患者和 HC 受试者血浆中差异表达的代谢物,并分析其涉及的主要代谢途径。多种成熟的机器学习算法证实,这些代谢物在区分 COVID-19 组与 CAP 和 HC 组方面表现出色,曲线下面积(AUC)为 1。在重症 COVID-19 组中观察到 AMP、dGMP、-甘油磷酸胆碱和肉碱的特异性失调。此外,随机森林分析表明,这些代谢物可区分重症 COVID-19 患者和轻症 COVID-19 患者,AUC 为 0.921。本研究可能拓宽我们对 COVID-19 病理生理机制的理解,并为开发针对 COVID-19 的新型治疗策略提供实验基础。