Inoue Masanori, Sekiguchi Kazuhito, Kishimoto Shintaro, Maeda Tomoki, Ihara Kenji
Department of Pediatrics, Faculty of Medicine, Oita University, Yufu, Oita, 879-5593, Japan.
Sci Rep. 2025 Jul 28;15(1):27378. doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-12856-0.
Small-for-gestational-age (SGA) infants exhibit considerable heterogeneity in growth trajectories and metabolic outcomes; however, the metabolic basis underlying these variations remains incompletely understood. In this study, we analyzed umbilical cord serum samples from term infants (n = 52; SGA infants, n = 18; appropriate-for-gestational-age controls, n = 34) using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry to explore metabolic profiles. Multivariate and univariate analyses revealed that SGA infants exhibited significantly altered levels of metabolites involved in galactose metabolism, lactose degradation, and multiple pathways related to carbohydrate and energy metabolism. Further subgroup analysis demonstrated that SGA infants with both low weight and short birth length displayed distinct alterations in amino acid metabolism compared to SGA infants with preserved birth length, involving pathways related to glycine, serine, urea cycle, ammonia recycling, and glutathione metabolism. Among these, glutamine showed consistent changes across multiple analytic approaches. These findings suggest that metabolic subclassification based on birth-body proportionality may help identify distinct metabolic phenotypes in SGA infants. Such profiles may serve as early biomarkers of growth potential or future metabolic risk, highlighting the potential for targeted interventions in at-risk subgroups.
小于胎龄（SGA）婴儿在生长轨迹和代谢结果方面表现出相当大的异质性；然而，这些差异背后的代谢基础仍未完全了解。在本研究中，我们使用气相色谱 - 质谱分析法分析了足月儿（n = 52；SGA婴儿，n = 18；适于胎龄对照，n = 34）的脐带血清样本，以探索代谢谱。多变量和单变量分析显示，SGA婴儿参与半乳糖代谢、乳糖降解以及与碳水化合物和能量代谢相关的多种途径的代谢物水平发生了显著变化。进一步的亚组分析表明，与出生身长正常的SGA婴儿相比，体重低且出生身长短的SGA婴儿在氨基酸代谢方面表现出明显不同的变化，涉及与甘氨酸、丝氨酸、尿素循环、氨再循环和谷胱甘肽代谢相关的途径。其中，谷氨酰胺在多种分析方法中表现出一致的变化。这些发现表明，基于出生身体比例的代谢亚分类可能有助于识别SGA婴儿中不同的代谢表型。这些谱可能作为生长潜力或未来代谢风险的早期生物标志物，突出了对高危亚组进行靶向干预的潜力。
