Lee Young Eun, Bowen Richard A, Kimball Bruce A
Monell Chemical Senses Center, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.
Department of Biomedical Sciences, College of Veterinary Medicine, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523, USA.
Metabolites. 2025 Jul 9;15(7):468. doi: 10.3390/metabo15070468.
BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: Outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza virus (AIV) result in significant financial losses and the death or depopulation of millions of domestic birds. Early and rapid detection and surveillance are needed to slow the spread of AIV and prevent its spillover to humans. The volatile metabolome (i.e., the pattern of volatile metabolites emitted by a living subject) represents one such source of health information that can be monitored for disease diagnosis. Indeed, dogs have been successfully trained to recognize patterns of "body odors" associated with many diseases. Because little is known regarding the mechanisms involved in the alteration of the volatile metabolome in response to health perturbation, questions still arise regarding the specificity, or lack thereof, of these alterations.
To address this concern, we experimentally infected twenty mallard ducks with one of two different strains of low-pathogenic AIV (ten ducks per strain) and collected cloacal swabs at various time points before and after infection.
Headspace analyses revealed that four volatiles were significantly altered following infection, with distinct profiles associated with each viral strain. The volatiles that differed between strains among post-infection sampling periods included ethylbenzyl ether ( = 0.00006), 2-phenoxyethanol ( = 0.00017), 2-hydroxybenzaldehyde ( = 0.00022), and 6-methyl-5-hepten-2-one ( = 0.00034).
These findings underscore that AIV-induced changes to the volatile metabolome are strain-specific, emphasizing the need for disease-specific profiling in diagnostic development.
背景/目的：高致病性禽流感病毒（AIV）的爆发会导致重大经济损失以及数百万家禽死亡或被扑杀。需要早期快速检测和监测以减缓AIV的传播并防止其传播给人类。挥发性代谢组（即活体发出的挥发性代谢物模式）是一种可用于疾病诊断监测的健康信息来源。事实上，犬类已被成功训练以识别与多种疾病相关的“体味”模式。由于对于健康状况受扰时挥发性代谢组变化所涉及的机制了解甚少，这些变化的特异性（或缺乏特异性）问题仍然存在。
为解决这一问题，我们用两种不同低致病性AIV毒株之一对20只野鸭进行实验性感染（每个毒株10只鸭子），并在感染前后的不同时间点采集泄殖腔拭子。
顶空分析显示，感染后有四种挥发性物质发生了显著变化，每种病毒毒株有不同的特征。感染后采样期不同毒株之间存在差异的挥发性物质包括乙苄醚（P = 0.00006）、2 - 苯氧基乙醇（P = 0.00017）、2 - 羟基苯甲醛（P = 0.00022）和6 - 甲基 - 5 - 庚烯 - 2 - 酮（P = 0.00034）。
这些发现强调AIV诱导的挥发性代谢组变化具有毒株特异性，突出了在诊断开发中进行疾病特异性分析的必要性
