Hollow Cobalt Oxide/Carbon Hybrids Aid Metabolic Encoding for Active Systemic Lupus Erythematosus during Pregnancy

Abstract

A noninvasive, easy operation, and accurate diagnostic protocol is highly demanded to assess systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) activity during pregnancy, promising real‐time activity monitoring during the whole gestational period to reduce adverse pregnancy outcomes. Here, machine learning of serum metabolic fingerprints (SMFs) is developed to assess the SLE activity for pregnant women. The SMFs are directly extracted through a hollow‐cobalt oxide/carbon (Co3O4/C)‐composite‐assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometer (LDI MS) platform. The Co3O4/C composite owns enhanced light absorption, size‐selective trapping, and better charge–hole separation, enabling improved ionization efficiency and selectivity for LDI MS detection toward small molecules. Metabolic fingerprints are collected from ≈0.1 µL serum within 1 s without enrichment and encoded by the optimized elastic net algorithm. The averaged area under the curve (AUC) value in the differentiation of active SLE from inactive SLE and healthy controls reaches 0.985 and 0.990, respectively. Further, a simplified panel based on four identified metabolites is built to distinguish SLE flares in pregnant women with the highest AUC value of 0.875 for the blind test. This work sets an accurate and practical protocol for SLE activity assessment during pregnancy, promoting precision diagnosis of disease status transitions in clinics.

Hollow multishelled heterostructures with enhanced performance for laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry based metabolic diagnosis

“…Favorable optical properties are among the preconditions for the MALDI matrix, which can promote subsequent energy transfer and charge transfer. 39,40 It has been reported that complex multiple-shelled hollow structures show enhanced performance over conventional simple hollow structures owing to the improved light absorption properties from the scattering and reflection effects. 41,42 The influence of shell number on the LDI performance of ZMO/CMO was further investigated.…”

Designed Nanomaterials‐Assisted Proteomics and Metabolomics Analysis for In Vitro Diagnosis

“…[42] Furthermore, hybrid materials of metal oxides can introduce diverse components, resulting in efficient carrier transport for enhanced ionization efficiency of small metabolites and abundant metal sites for specific extraction of proteins/peptides. [44,46] Vedarethinam et al constructed vanadium oxide core-shell nanorods (SiO 2 @V 2 O 5 ) using mesoporous silica nanorods to support vanadium oxide on the surface for metabolic detection. Besides, mesoporous silica with tuneable pore size and high surface area realized effective adsorption of small molecules.…”

“…Combining the optimized algorithm, the diagnostic models successfully discriminated pregnant patients with active systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) from the inactive SLE and healthy controls (HC) with simple, accurate, and cost-effective measures. [46] Huang et al developed a multifunctional Pt-based nanoreactor platform for high-throughput profiling of metabolite fingerprints in the native serum. As a result, the platform identified a panel of five biomarkers, allowing for the differentiation of pancreatic cancer patients from healthy controls to be successfully diagnosed, with a sensitivity of 84% and specificity of 92%.…”

Bovine Omasum-Inspired Interfacial Carbon-Based Nanocomposite for Saliva Metabolic Screening of Gastric Cancer

“…Matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time of-flight (MALDI-TOF) MS possesses competitive advantages in fast analysis, simple sample preparation, high-throughput, low cost, and accurate mass measurement for metabolic-based disease screening compared to the above-mentioned techniques. − Notably, the matrix with rational design acts in a significant role in the small metabolic analysis of LDI-TOF MS . Based on the unique physicochemical properties of nanomaterials, various inorganic materials have been served as MALDI matrices for the analysis of small molecules. − Particularly, carbon-based nanomaterials including fullerene, graphene, and carbon nanotube, with attractive structural feature and high ultraviolet (UV) absorption, have been extensively employed for detecting various small molecules, − even in vitro diagnostics application .…”