Bykowski Elani A, Petersson Jamie N, Dukelow Sean, Ho Chester, Debert Chantel T, Montina Tony, Metz Gerlinde A S
Canadian Centre for Behavioural Neuroscience, Department of Neuroscience, University of Lethbridge, Lethbridge, AB T1K 3M4, Canada.
Southern Alberta Genome Sciences Centre, University of Lethbridge, Lethbridge, AB T1K 3M4, Canada.
Metabolites. 2023 Apr 28;13(5):605. doi: 10.3390/metabo13050605.
The assessment, management, and prognostication of spinal cord injury (SCI) mainly rely upon observer-based ordinal scales measures. H nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy provides an effective approach for the discovery of objective biomarkers from biofluids. These biomarkers have the potential to aid in understanding recovery following SCI. This proof-of-principle study determined: (a) If temporal changes in blood metabolites reflect the extent of recovery following SCI; (b) whether changes in blood-derived metabolites serve as prognostic indicators of patient outcomes based on the spinal cord independence measure (SCIM); and (c) whether metabolic pathways involved in recovery processes may provide insights into mechanisms that mediate neural damage and repair. Morning blood samples were collected from male complete and incomplete SCI patients ( = 7) following injury and at 6 months post-injury. Multivariate analyses were used to identify changes in serum metabolic profiles and were correlated to clinical outcomes. Specifically, acetyl phosphate, 1,3,7-trimethyluric acid, 1,9-dimethyluric acid, and acetic acid significantly related to SCIM scores. These preliminary findings suggest that specific metabolites may serve as proxy measures of the SCI phenotype and prognostic markers of recovery. Thus, serum metabolite analysis combined with machine learning holds promise in understanding the physiology of SCI and aiding in prognosticating outcomes following injury.
脊髓损伤（SCI）的评估、管理和预后主要依赖于基于观察者的序数量表测量。氢核磁共振（NMR）光谱学为从生物流体中发现客观生物标志物提供了一种有效方法。这些生物标志物有可能有助于理解SCI后的恢复情况。这项原理验证研究确定了：（a）血液代谢物的时间变化是否反映SCI后的恢复程度；（b）基于脊髓独立性测量（SCIM），血液衍生代谢物的变化是否可作为患者预后的预测指标；以及（c）恢复过程中涉及的代谢途径是否可为介导神经损伤和修复的机制提供见解。在受伤后和受伤后6个月，从男性完全性和不完全性SCI患者（n = 7）中采集早晨的血样。使用多变量分析来识别血清代谢谱的变化，并将其与临床结果相关联。具体而言，乙酰磷酸、1,3,7-三甲基尿酸、1,9-二甲基尿酸和乙酸与SCIM评分显著相关。这些初步发现表明，特定代谢物可能作为SCI表型的替代指标和恢复的预后标志物。因此，血清代谢物分析与机器学习相结合有望理解SCI的生理学，并有助于预测受伤后的结果。
