Italian cohort of patients affected by inflammatory bowel disease is characterised by variation in glycerophospholipid, free fatty acids and amino acid levels

Abstract

1Background Inflammatory bowel disease is a group of pathologies characterised by chronic 2 inflammation of the intestine and an unclear aetiology. Its main manifestations are Crohn's disease 3 and ulcerative colitis. Currently, biopsies are the most used diagnostic tests for these diseases and 4 metabolomics could represent a less invasive approach to identify biomarkers of disease presence and 5 progression. 6Objectives The lipid and the polar metabolite profile of plasma samples of patients affected by 7 inflammatory bowel disease have been compared with healthy individuals with the aim to find their 8 metabolomic differences. Also, a selected sub-set of samples was analysed following solid phase 9 extraction to further characterise differences between pathological samples. 10 Methods A total of 200 plasma samples were analysed using drift tube ion mobility coupled with 11 time of flight mass spectrometry and liquid chromatography for the lipid metabolite profile analysis, 12 while liquid chromatography coupled with triple quadrupole mass spectromety was used for the polar 13 metabolite profile analysis. 14 Results Variations in the lipid profile between inflammatory bowel disease and healthy individuals 15 were highlighted. Phosphatidylcholines, lyso-phosphatidylcholines and fatty acids were significantly 16 changed among pathological samples suggesting changes in phospholipase A2 and arachidonic acid 17 metabolic pathways. Variations in the levels of cholesteryl esters and glycerophospholipids were also 18 found. Furthermore, a decrease in amino acids levels suggests mucosal damage in inflammatory 19 bowel disease.20Conclusions Given good statistical results and predictive power of the model produced in our study, 21 metabolomics can be considered as a valid tool to investigate inflammatory bowel disease. 22 23 Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a group of pathologies characterised by a chronic phlogosis, 24 and a not specified etiology (Baumgart and Carding 2007). The main clinically defined forms of IBD 25 are Crohn's disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC) (Kaser et al. 2010, Kumar and Clark 2016). The 26 incidence of IBD fluctuates from country to country but the main two typologies affect 1.5 million 27 Americans, 2.2 million Europeans, and several hundred thousands more worldwide (Kumar and 28 Clark 2016, Cosnes et al. 2011). Diagnosis of IBDs is particularly challenging, as other diseases 29 causing similar signs and symptoms need to be excluded first through a combination of tests, but the 30 ultimate diagnostic tool remains endoscopic examination coupled with biopsies. Furthermore, 31 discrimination between the two manifestations, UC and CD, is particularly complicated given the 32 similarity of the symptoms, resulting in 10-15% of cases lacking a defined diagnosis (undefined 33 colitis) (Kumar and Clark 2016). Different causative agents have been proposed in the past for CD 34 and UC diagnosis. One of these theories is based on the T-cell pathway, that proposes the idea that T 35 cells activation...

Feed Restriction Reveals Distinct Serum Metabolome Profiles in Chickens Divergent in Feed Efficiency Traits

“…The FL can help explain the higher serum levels of lysophosphatidylcholines C16:1, C18:1, and C20:3, as well as the higher serum levels of diacyl-glycerophosphatidylcholines C32:1, C34:1, C36:0, and C36:1, and lower levels of C40:5 in high-RFI chickens. However, as RFI-related profiles in phospholipids remained discernible in both FL groups, other host physiological factors played a role and may have been related to RFI-related differences in phospholipase A2 and arachidonic acid metabolic pathways [28]. By contrast, the RFI-variation in acyl-alkyl-phosphatidylcholines was totally independent of the chicken’s FL.…”

Integrating omics for a better understanding of Inflammatory Bowel Disease: a step towards personalized medicine

“…Moreover, Scoville et al showed that the serum metabolomic profile in IBD patients reflected differences in a number of lipid, amino acid, and tricarboxylic acid cycle related metabolites when compared to the healthy controls [151]. In a more recent study, Murgia et al showed that using metabolomics and lipidomics, they were able to differentiate between IBD patients and healthy controls, and more importantly between CD and UC patients [152]. These studies illustrate the value of lipidomics and metabolomics in identifying potential biomarkers, however they remain limited and require validation in bigger cohorts.…”

Mucosal Metabolomic Profiling and Pathway Analysis Reveal the Metabolic Signature of Ulcerative Colitis

“…Previous published metabolomic data from IBD patients have given first hints on metabolic changes during the course of the disease. However, these data are either generated from serum [9][10][11][12][13][14], stool [12], or urine [15] samples. Moreover, these studies were restricted to pediatric patients [12,14], or treated patients [9,11,13,15].…”