Metabolomics in NEC: An Updated Review

Abstract

Necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) represents the most common and lethal acute gastrointestinal emergency of newborns, mainly affecting those born prematurely. It can lead to severe long-term sequelae and the mortality rate is approximately 25%. Furthermore, the diagnosis is difficult, especially in the early stages, due to multifactorial pathogenesis and complex clinical pictures with mild and non-specific symptoms. In addition, the existing tests have poor diagnostic value. Thus, the scientific community has been focusing its attention on the identification of non-invasive biomarkers capable of prediction, early diagnosis and discriminating NEC from other intestinal diseases in order to intervene early and block the progression of the pathology. In this regard, the use of “omics” technologies, especially metabolomics and microbiomics, could be a fundamental synergistic strategy to study the pathophysiology of NEC. In addition, a deeper knowledge of the microbiota–host cross-talk can clarify the metabolic pathways potentially involved in the pathology, allowing for the identification of specific biomarkers. In this article, the authors analyze the state-of-the-art concerning the application of metabolomics and microbiota analysis to investigate this pathology and discuss the future possibility of the metabolomic fingerprint of patients for diagnostic purposes.