Metabolomics in chronic lung diseases

Abstract

Chronic lung diseases represent a significant global burden. Their increasing incidence and complexity render a comprehensive, multidisciplinary and personalized approach to each patient, critically important. Most recently, unique biochemical pathways and disease markers have been identified through large‐scale metabolomic studies. Metabolomics is the study of metabolic pathways and the measurement of unique biomolecules in a living system. Analysing samples from different compartments such as bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) and plasma has proven useful for the characterization of a number of pathological conditions and offers promise as a clinical tool. For example, several studies using mass spectrometry (MS) have shown alterations in the sphingolipid metabolism of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) sufferers. In this article, we present a practical review of the application of metabolomics to the study of chronic lung diseases (CLD): COPD, idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) and asthma. The insights, which the analytical strategies employed in metabolomics, have provided to the dissection of the biochemistry of CLD and future clinical biomarkers are explored.

Respiratory metabolites in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) and exhaled breath condensate (EBC) can differentiate horses affected by severe equine asthma from healthy horses

“…Although not statistically different between groups, we found metabolites in BALF samples including lactate, pyruvate, taurine and glycine that have been reported to have a role in the pathogenesis of allergies. Taurine and glycine, the main molecules determining the spreading of BALF data according to the rPCA model, have a protective effect and regulate cytokine over-expression in allergies [2]. Lactate and pyruvate are representative of energy metabolism that was found to be altered in BALF from mice with experimentally induced allergic airway inflammation [34].…”

“…Respiratory metabolomics is gaining popularity in human and pediatric medicine [1,2]. Metabolic dysfunctions in chronic lung diseases such as asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis and cystic fibrosis have been ascertained [2][3][4][5][6], and clinicians are now using metabolomics in the diagnostic and prognostic approach other than in clinical research [2].…”

“…Respiratory metabolomics is gaining popularity in human and pediatric medicine [1,2]. Metabolic dysfunctions in chronic lung diseases such as asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis and cystic fibrosis have been ascertained [2][3][4][5][6], and clinicians are now using metabolomics in the diagnostic and prognostic approach other than in clinical research [2]. This new approach also shows a great potential in veterinary medicine [7][8][9], and untargeted metabolomics is often applied to improve knowledge and speculate novel hypothesis in human and veterinary lung research [10,11].…”

Microbiota and Lung Cancer. Opportunities and Challenges for Improving Immunotherapy Efficacy

“…New techniques based on microbiota-associated metabolic fingerprints can be useful to identify microbiota composition as recently developed for gut microbiota from lung cancer patients without requiring RNA analyses (82). Notably, it has been found that the metabolic profile in lungs from diseased patients, including lung cancer, significantly differs from that in healthy individuals (83)(84)(85). Notably some studies have found that specific metabolites are enriched in respiratory airways of patients with different diseases and this profile correlates with the presence of specific bacterial species (86)(87)(88).…”

‘Omics’: The new language in medicine that we all must learn

“…In keeping with high throughput assays, Nambiar et al . reviewed metabolomics in lung disease . Metabolomics provide insights into cell energetics and metabolic pathways that generate energy for cells but these metabolomic pathways are dysregulated in disease.…”