Department of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Wuxi School of Medicine, Jiangnan University, Wuxi, China.
Department of Parasitology, Harbin Medical University, Harbin, China.
Front Cell Infect Microbiol. 2023 Jan 6;12:1040330. doi: 10.3389/fcimb.2022.1040330. eCollection 2022.
Clonorchiasis is an important foodborne parasitic disease. The omics-based-techniques could illuminate parasite biology and further make innovations in the research for parasitic diseases. However, knowledge about the serum metabolic profiles and related metabolic pathways in clonorchiasis is very limited.
A untargeted ultra-high performance liquid tandem chromatography quadrupole time of flight mass spectrometry (UHPLC-QTOF-MS) was used to profile the serum metabolites of rats at both 4 and 8 weeks post infection (wpi) with (). Additionally, multivariate statistical analysis methods were employed to identify differential metabolites. Next, serum amino acids and phosphatidylcholines (PCs) levels were determined by targeted metabolomics analysis.
A total of 10530 and 6560 ions were identified in ESI+ and ESI- modes. The levels of phosphatidylcholines, glycerophosphocholine and choline were significantly changed, with the shift in lipid metabolism. Significant changes were also observed in amino acids (isoleucine, valine, leucine, threonine, glutamate and glutamine). Targeted analysis showed that BCAAs (isoleucine, valine, leucine) levels significantly increased at 4 wpi and decreased at 8 wpi; threonine was increased at 8 wpi, whereas glutamate and glutamine showed a decreasing trend at 8 wpi. Additionally, the level of 17 PCs were significantly changed in infected rats. Marked metabolic pathways were involved in clonorchiasis, including glycerophospholipid metabolism, alanine, aspartate and glutamate metabolism, histidine metabolism and pyrimidine metabolism.
These results show that infection can cause significant changes in the rat serum metabolism, especially in amino acids and lipids. The metabolic signature together with perturbations in metabolic pathways could provide more in depth understanding of clonorchiasis and further make potential therapeutic interventions.
华支睾吸虫病是一种重要的食源性寄生虫病。基于组学的技术可以阐明寄生虫的生物学特性，并进一步推动寄生虫病的研究创新。然而，关于华支睾吸虫病的血清代谢谱及相关代谢途径的知识非常有限。
采用非靶向超高效液相串联色谱-四极杆飞行时间质谱（UHPLC-QTOF-MS）分析感染后 4 周和 8 周的大鼠血清代谢物。此外，还采用多变量统计分析方法来鉴定差异代谢物。然后，通过靶向代谢组学分析测定血清氨基酸和磷脂（PCs）水平。
在 ESI+和 ESI-模式下共鉴定出 10530 个和 6560 个离子。脂质代谢发生明显变化，磷脂、甘油磷酸胆碱和胆碱水平显著降低。氨基酸（异亮氨酸、缬氨酸、亮氨酸、苏氨酸、谷氨酸和谷氨酰胺）也发生了显著变化。靶向分析显示，支链氨基酸（异亮氨酸、缬氨酸、亮氨酸）水平在 4 周时显著升高，8 周时降低；苏氨酸在 8 周时升高，而谷氨酸和谷氨酰胺在 8 周时呈下降趋势。此外，感染大鼠的 17 种 PCs 水平也发生了显著变化。华支睾吸虫病涉及明显的代谢途径，包括甘油磷脂代谢、丙氨酸、天冬氨酸和谷氨酸代谢、组氨酸代谢和嘧啶代谢。
这些结果表明，感染可导致大鼠血清代谢发生显著变化，尤其是氨基酸和脂质。代谢特征以及代谢途径的改变可能为进一步深入了解华支睾吸虫病提供更多的信息，并为潜在的治疗干预提供依据。
