Metabolite Reanalysis Revealed Potential Biomarkers for COVID-19: A Potential Link with Immune Response

Abstract

Aim: To understand the pathological progress of COVID-19 and to explore the potential biomarkers. Background: The COVID-19 pandemic is ongoing. There is metabolomics research about COVID-19 indicating the rich information of metabolomics is worthy of further data mining. Methods: We applied bioinformatics technology to reanalyze the published metabolomics data of COVID-19. Results: Benzoate, β-alanine and 4-chlorobenzoic acid were first reported to be used as potential biomarkers to distinguish COVID-19 patients from healthy individuals; taurochenodeoxycholic acid 3-sulfate, glucuronate and N,N,N-trimethyl-alanylproline betaine TMAP are the top classifiers in the receiver operating characteristic curve of COVID-severe and COVID-nonsevere patients. Conclusion: These unique metabolites suggest an underlying immunoregulatory treatment strategy for COVID-19.

Metabolomics analysis identifies glutamic acid and cystine imbalances in COVID-19 patients without comorbid conditions. Implications on redox homeostasis and COVID-19 pathophysiology

“…Cysteine or cystine imbalance has been reported in other COVID-19 cohorts with variable changes according to disease severity, immune activity and presence of comorbidities [1,33,51,[68][69][70]. In fact, cystine levels are critical to contend with ROS in COVID-19 as well as in several malignancies [1].…”

Potential for Early Noninvasive COVID-19 Detection Using Electronic-Nose Technologies and Disease-Specific VOC Metabolic Biomarkers

“…Levels of certain low-, high-, and very-high-density lipids (including LDLs-1, 4, 5; HDLs-1, 4; VLDL-5; and triglycerides) within the lipoprotein metabolic pathway also increased with disease severity in SARS-CoV-2-infected individuals [ 174 ]. Finally, Chen et al [ 175 ] examined metabolites in nucleic acid and amino acid metabolism and found that the appearance or increase of certain metabolites, such as taurochenodeoxycholic acid 3-sulfate, glucoronate, and N,N,N-trimethyl–alanylproline betaine TMAP, was also correlated with COVID-19 disease severity.…”

Amino acid profiling of COVID-19 patients blood serum

“…Recently, there has been an increasing number of studies devoted to the analysis of the blood metabolome for diagnosis and assessment of disease severity [1][2][3][4] . Metabolomic profiling of human biological fluids is of great interest in terms of opportunities to obtain additional knowledge about the pathogenesis of diseases and possible therapeutic targets.…”

“…To date, many papers about metabolomic profile of patients with COVID-19 have been published. Most of them are aimed at determining the unique metabolic signature of COVID-19 or at predicting the severity of the disease and/or mortality from it [1][2][3]6 . It has been noted that in many diseases, changes in the levels of certain amino acids can serve as a prognostic factor 4,7 .…”

“…Serum amino acid concentrations are quite strongly associated with COVID-19 symptomatology 1,[6][7][8][9][10] . Nevertheless, the available data about the involvement of individual amino acids in pathological processes vary considerably.…”