Metabolomic-Based Methods in Diagnosis and Monitoring Infection Progression

Abstract

A robust biomarker screening and validation is crucial for overcoming the current limits in the clinical management of infectious diseases. In this chapter, a general workflow for metabolomics is summarized. Subsequently, an overview of the major contributions of this omics science to the field of biomarkers of infectious diseases is discussed. Different approaches using a variety of analytical platforms can be distinguished to unveil the key metabolites for the diagnosis, prognosis, response to treatment and susceptibility for infectious diseases. To allow the implementation of such biomarkers into the clinics, the performance of large-scale studies employing solid validation criteria becomes essential. Focusing on the etiological agents and after an extensive review of the field, we present a comprehensive revision of the main metabolic biomarkers of viral, bacterial, fungal, and parasitic diseases. Finally, we discussed several articles which show the strongest validation criteria. Following these research avenues, precious clinical resources will be revealed, allowing for reduced misdiagnosis, more efficient therapies, and affordable costs, ultimately leading to a better patient management.

Integrative Metabolomics to Identify Molecular Signatures of Responses to Vaccines and Infections

“…As the metabolomics research community finds ways to overcome the current limitations of this powerful technology, the way for personalized metabolic phenotyping will be paved [147,148], which may enable early diagnosis [149], informed treatment choices [150], and accurate prediction of response to therapy [151]. Of note, metabolomics data have advantages compared to data from other screening methods, as they directly measure drug metabolism, inflammation markers, and other ever-changing indicators of a patient's disease status.…”

Metabolomics in infectious diseases and drug discovery

“…6 CE chromatography can also be used prior to MS analysis, provides medium coverage of the metabolome and is an ideal approach for charged metabolites. 7,8 Metabolomics studies include two complementary approaches, targeted and untargeted metabolomics. The targeted approach is usually preceded by the formation of a hypothesis that needs to be tested and aims to quantify a predetermined set of metabolites.…”

Lipid metabolic signatures deviate in sepsis survivors compared to non-survivors

“…Even though metabolomics is a relatively new approach for studying infectious diseases, metabolite signals found in biological samples can be used as infection biomarkers [10] , [11] , [12] , [13] , [14] . Metabolomics has also been used to successfully build classification models of response to therapy [15] , to predict mortality [16] , [17] , [18] and to evaluate global differences between survivors and non-survivors after hospitalization for community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) and sepsis [19] .…”