Changes in Amino Acid and Acylcarnitine Plasma Profiles for Distinguishing Patients with Multiple Sclerosis from Healthy Controls

Abstract

McDonald criteria and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) are used for the diagnosis of multiple sclerosis (MS); nevertheless, it takes a considerable amount of time to make a clinical decision. Amino acid and fatty acid metabolic pathways are disturbed in MS, and this information could be useful for diagnosis. The aim of our study was to find changes in amino acid and acylcarnitine plasma profiles for distinguishing patients with multiple sclerosis from healthy controls. We have applied a targeted metabolomics approach based on tandem mass-spectrometric analysis of amino acids and acylcarnitines in dried plasma spots followed by multivariate statistical analysis for discovery of differences between MS (n=16) and control (n=12) groups. It was found that partial least square discriminant analysis yielded better group classification as compared to principal component linear discriminant analysis and the random forest algorithm. All the three models detected noticeable changes in the amino acid and acylcarnitine profiles in the MS group relative to the control group. Our results hold promise for further development of the clinical decision support system.

Amino Acid Levels as Potential Biomarkers of Multiple Sclerosis in Elderly Patients: Preliminary Report

“…It was already found in some studies that the levels of asparagine, glutamate, and N-acetyl-aspartate (NAA) were higher in plasma samples from patients with MS due to activation of the Asp biosynthesis pathway. This phenomenon was confirmed by Kasakin et al, 20 however their results of an increase in Asp concentration in their MS group and an increase in the glutamate concentration were not statistically significant. It should be emphasized that Asp, Glu, and other amino acids are related to the amino acid superpathway, and that their metabolism is connected to the tricarboxylic acid cycle and oxaloacetate and α-ketoglutarate intermediates; furthermore, Asp is a precursor of NAA.…”

Evaluating immune response and metabolic related biomarkers pre-allogenic hematopoietic stem cell transplant in acute myeloid leukemia

“…Acylcarnitines also play an important role in energy metabolism by participating in the transfer of fatty acids into mitochondrial membrane [ 42 , 66 ]. Acylcarnitines, esters of L-carnitines and fatty acids, are important intermediates in metabolism.…”

Disease phenotype prediction in multiple sclerosis

“…Serum-based studies in MS have demonstrated that metabolomic signatures can be associated with more severe disease courses 5 and that kynurenine-pathway related metabolites can be used to differentiate between clinical phenotypes of MS, 6 validated in independent cohorts. Recent studies have focused on blood to diagnose MS, 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 to distinguish between RRMS and PMS, 11 , 12 and several have studied MS in the metabolome of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 which has been reviewed by Bhargava and Anthony. 21 …”