Serum fatty acid profiles and potential biomarkers of ankylosing spondylitis determined by gas chromatography–mass spectrometry and multivariate statistical analysis

Abstract

Ankylosing spondylitis (AS) is a common chronic inflammatory rheumatic disease. Early and accurate detection is essential for effective disease treatment. Recently, research has focused on genomics and proteomics. However, the associated metabolic variations, especially fatty acid profiles, have been poorly discussed. In this study, the gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) approach and multivariate statistical analysis were used to investigate the metabolic profiles of serum free fatty acids (FFAs) and esterified fatty acids (EFAs) in AS patients. The results showed that significant differences in most of the FFA (C12:0, C16:0, C16:1, C18:3, C20:4, C20:5, C22:5 and C22:6) and EFA (C12:0, C16:1, C18:0, C18:1, C18:2, C18:3, C20:4 and C22:6) concentrations were found between the AS patients and healthy controls (p < 0.05). Principal component analysis and partial least squares discriminant analysis were performed to classify the AS patients and controls. Additionally, FFAs C20:4, C12:0, C18:3 and EFAs C22:6, C12:0 were confirmed as potential biomarkers to identify AS patients and healthy controls. The present study highlights that differences in the serum FFA and EFA profiles of AS patients reflect the metabolic disorder. Moreover, FFA and EFA biomarkers appear to have clinical applications for the screening and diagnosis of AS.

Long‐chain unsaturated fatty acids as possible important metabolites for primary angle‐closure glaucoma based on targeted metabolomic analysis

“…Metabolomics is an emerging field of biomedical research that is based on characterizing the repertoire of small molecules in biological samples. Among a variety of techniques conventionally used for metabolite profiling, gas chromatograph–mass spectrometry (GC–MS) as a relatively low‐cost alternative has been widely used for the identification and quantification of metabolites to distinguish patients with diabetes (Liu et al, ), ankylosing spondylitis (Chen et al, ), Alzheimer's disease (Wang et al, ) and breast cancer (Lv & Yang, ). Recently, metabolomics coupled with multivariate statistical analysis has been also applied to plasma metabolite profiling for detecting systemic metabolic differences between POAG patients and controls (Burgess et al, ).…”

Multi-omics Analysis at Serum Proteomic and Metabolomic Levels Reveals Mechanisms of Moxibustion for a Mouse Model of Ankylosing Spondylitis

“…Importantly, Lecithin cholesterol acyltransferase (LCAT) is the key enzyme in this metabolic process, which can elevate the expression of APOA and further promote the clearance of cholesterol [73]. However, in this study, in ammatory conditions induced by AS decreased capacity of HDL and LCAT to e ciently transfer excess cholesterol in the ligament tissue to the liver, leading to the ectopic fat deposition in the ligaments of AS model mice [74]. Then, ectopic fat deposition could further promote the production of in ammatory cytokines, which resulted in cartilage dysfunction and degeneration in patients with AS.…”

Effect of food intake and ambient air pollution exposure on ankylosing spondylitis disease activity

“…In concordance, we observed that higher consumptions of SFA were more strongly correlated with BASFI score than MUFA and PUFA. Recently, serum free fatty acids have been shown as a biomarker of AS and some evidence of fat metaplasia in the pathogenesis of this disease has been revealed [25,26]. Moreover, diet strongly influences the composition of the gut microbiota in this regards diet rich in fat and carbohydrates might impact the gut microbiota of AS patients thus subclinical gut inflammation in AS might restrict the absorption and despite high energy intake in AS, BMI is not higher than controls [27,28].…”