Urinary metabolomic investigations in vitiligo patients

Abstract

Urinary metabolomics is a useful non-invasive tool for large-scale screening of disease-related metabolites. However, no comprehensive urinary metabolomic analysis of vitiligo is presently available. To investigate the urine metabolic pattern of vitiligo patients, we conducted a combined cross-sectional and prospective self-control cohort study and an untargeted urinary metabolomic analysis. In the cross-sectional study, 295 vitiligo patients and 192 age‐ and sex‐matched controls were enrolled, and 71 differential metabolites between two groups were identified. Pathway enrichment analysis revealed that drug metabolism-cytochrome P450, biopterin metabolism, vitamin B9 (folate) metabolism, selenoamino acid metabolism, and methionine and cysteine metabolism showed significant enrichment in vitiligo patients compared with the status in healthy controls. In the self-control cohort, 46 active vitiligo patients were recruited to analyse the urinary metabolic signatures after treatment. All of these patients were asked to undertake follow-up visits every 2 months three times after first consulting and the disease stage was evaluated compared with that at the last visit. Folate metabolism, linoleate metabolism, leukotriene metabolism, alkaloid biosynthesis, and tyrosine metabolism were predicted to be involved in vitiligo activity. Our study is the first attempt to reveal urinary metabolic signatures of vitiligo patients and provides new insights into the metabolic mechanisms of vitiligo.

Metabolomic signature of amino acids in plasma of patients with non-segmental Vitiligo

“…A comprehensive vitiligo map with 4845 protein nodes linked with 107,416 edges revealed a list of top-order proteins that play a key role in the disease pathology mechanism including SUMO2, ESR1, COPS5, MYC, SMAD3, and Cullin proteins (Malhotra et al, 2018). The need for a useful non-invasive tool for large-scale screening, urinary metabolomics was recently reported to detect disease-related metabolites using (Liu et al, 2020).…”

Metabolomics Signature and Potential Application of Serum Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids Metabolism in Patients With Vitiligo

“…The reason for ARA decrease is still unclear. We surmise that metabolic exhaustion might provide an explanation considering the reportedly elevated levels of PGs (PGE2, PGD2 and PGF2α) in vitiligo lesions and leukotrienes in urine ( 11 , 13 ), which are both metabolites of ARA. It’s worth noting that abnormality of phospholipase in patients with vitiligo has not been previously reported, which needs further study.…”

“…Metabolomics is an emerging field that be used to monitor the alternations in all low molecular metabolites produced by cellular processes, which delineates an overall metabolic profiles have widely applicable to investigate clinical features of various diseases. Recently, the metabolome based on miscellaneous samples, including serum, plasma, blister liquid and urine so on, have revealed that metabolic disturbance of amino acids and lipid mediators are involved in physiological and pathological changes in vitiligo patients (10)(11)(12)(13). However, almost all previous studies on the basis of non-targeted metabolomics techniques, which the accuracy of quantitative methods are necessary to promote further.…”

Identification of Serum Biomarkers and Pathways of Systemic Lupus Erythematosus with Skin Involvement Through GC/MS-Based Metabolomics Analysis

“…Another significant altered metabolite was L-alpha-aminobutyric acid (VIP = 3.91, FC = 3.68), which was involved in cysteine and methionine metabolism, and we showed it was unregulated in SL patients compared to SNL patients. The abnormal cysteine and methionine metabolism was also observed in vitiligo patients compared to HC by Liu et al 22 It was reported that aberrant homocysteine metabolism may lead to increased oxidative damage, excessive IL-6 production, and then trigger autoimmunity and the development of vitiligo. 23 , 24 Likewise, excessive oxidative damage was also a characteristic of SLE.…”