Amino acid profiling of COVID-19 patients blood serum

Abstract

Main objectives of this study were to analyse metabolomic profile features of patients with COVID-19 using mass spectrometry techniques while taking into account the clinical and laboratory history, and to study the relationship between the severity of COVID-19 symptoms and the concentration of primary metabolites, primarily amino acids. We used frozen blood serum samples of 935 COVID-19 patients from the City Hospital No. 40 biobank collection. Metabolomic profile was studied by HPLS-MS/MS method. R programming language was used for statistical data processing. The difference of metabolic profile of patients with COVID-19 depending on the severity of the disease was revealed based on the performed analysis - for 52 out of 84 detected compounds there were differences with reliability p<0,01. Statistically significant differences in concentration were recorded for organic acids, amino acids and their derivatives. Using samples from the biobank collection, a metabolomic study of the biomaterial of patients hospitalised with the diagnosis of COVID-19 was carried out. According to the results obtained, kynurenine, phenylalanine and acetylcarnitine were associated with the severity of COVID-19 infection.