Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry based serum metabolic analysis for premature infants and the relationship with necrotizing enterocolitis: a cross-sectional study

Abstract

Background Preterm birth and feeding are the most important pathogenic factors of neonatal necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC). Metabonomic has been widely used in the diagnosis and treatment of other diseases, but there is no research on the related diseases of premature infants. Compared with full-term infants, the metabolism of preterm infants has its own specificity, so it can easily lead to NEC and other digestive tract inflammatory diseases. Metabonomic may be applied to the diagnosis of preterm related diseases, such as NEC. Methods The model was established with premature infant serum samples from 19 premature infants in our hospital, which was compared with the full-term infant control group. Serum was analyzed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), coupled with the analysis of serum metabolic characteristics. The variable important in projection, P value and Pearson correlation coefficient of samples were analyzed by using SIMCA, SPSS and other multivariate statistical analysis software. Results Compared to the term infants, premature infants had significantly higher levels of luteolin, and lower levels of xylose, O-succinyl-L-homoserine and lauric acid in the serum. There were some correlations among several different metabolites and clinically related indices (albumin, total bilirubin) for premature birth related diseases. Conclusions There are metabolic alterations in the serum of premature infants, which make contribution to the diagnosis of NEC.

Analysis of serum metabolism in premature infants before and after feeding using GC–MS and the relationship with necrotizing enterocolitis

“…Previously, in a metabolomics study of intestinal inflammatory diseases in premature infants, Wilcock et al found that some metabolites had significant differences in premature infants with NEC (Wilcock et al, 2016 ). Our research group has conducted serum metabolomics studies on premature infants and full‐term infants, detected differential metabolites, and speculated that they were related to the occurrence of NEC (Wang et al, 2019 ). However, characteristics related to feeding were not included in the influencing factors.…”

Urine NMR Metabolomics Profile of Preterm Infants With Necrotizing Enterocolitis Over the First Two Months of Life: A Pilot Longitudinal Case-Control Study

“…Despite the impressive body size of literature on clinical metabolomics-based studies in human disease, the number of metabolomics-based studies on NEC is small, and the identification of reliable candidate omics-based biomarkers for the prediction and the early diagnosis of NEC is still far from being definitive. After the exclusion of metabolomics-based studies enrolling babies with sepsis (both early-onset and late-onset sepsis), approximately ten studies have utilized metabolomics alone or combined with other omics in preterm newborns with NEC; five were based only on metabolomics in various biological fluids, including serum ( Wilcock et al, 2016 ; Wang et al, 2019 ), stools ( Rusconi et al, 2018 ), urine ( Thomaidou et al, 2019 ), and dry blood spots ( Sinclair et al, 2020 ). A study combined metabolomics with proteomics in serum samples ( Stewart et al, 2016a ), and four studies integrated metagenomics with metabolomics in urine ( Morrow et al, 2013 ) and stools ( Stewart et al, 2016b ; Wandro et al, 2018 ; Brehin et al, 2020 ).…”