Allegri Gabriella, Poms Martin, Zürcher Nadia, Rüfenacht Véronique, Rimann Nicole, Mathis Déborah, Thöny Beat, Gautschi Matthias, Husain Ralf A, Karall Daniela, Orchel-Szastak Karolina, Porta Francesco, Roland Dominique, Siri Barbara, Dionisi-Vici Carlo, Santer René, Häberle Johannes
Division of Metabolism and Children's Research Centre (CRC), University Children's Hospital Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
Division Clinical Chemistry and Biochemistry, University Children's Hospital Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
NPJ Metab Health Dis. 2025;3(1):19. doi: 10.1038/s44324-025-00051-8. Epub 2025 May 6.
Urea cycle disorders (UCDs) are a group of rare conditions, possibly life-threatening and without definitive cure besides liver transplantation. Traditional biochemical analyses/biomarkers cannot reliably determine changes in the UC-function from baseline to post-intervention. We describe a UHPLC-HRMS method to assess ureagenesis in plasma and dried blood spots for [N]urea and [N]amino acids, using [N]ammonium chloride as tracer. [N]enrichment of urea and amino acids was studied in controls ( = 22) and patients ( = 59), the latter showing characteristic ureagenesis variations according to their underlying metabolic defect. Follow-up of therapies was successful, as we observed restoration of [N]urea production and lowering of [N]glutamine. There were no adverse events, and only minimal amounts of tracer and samples required with a short sample preparation time and analysis. Thus, the method proved to be safe and efficient to monitor UCD patients of variable severity pre- and post-therapy, being suitable as physiological endpoint for development of therapies.
尿素循环障碍(UCDs)是一组罕见疾病,可能危及生命,除肝移植外尚无根治方法。传统的生化分析/生物标志物无法可靠地确定尿素循环功能从基线到干预后的变化。我们描述了一种超高效液相色谱-高分辨质谱法,以氯化铵为示踪剂,评估血浆和干血斑中尿素生成过程中的[氮]尿素和[氮]氨基酸。在22名对照者和59名患者中研究了尿素和氨基酸的[氮]富集情况,后者根据其潜在的代谢缺陷表现出特征性的尿素生成变化。治疗随访取得成功,因为我们观察到[氮]尿素生成恢复且[氮]谷氨酰胺降低。未发生不良事件,所需示踪剂和样本量极少,样本制备时间和分析时间短。因此,该方法被证明在监测不同严重程度的UCD患者治疗前后是安全有效的,适合作为治疗开发的生理终点。