The following is a summary of “Exacerbation-prone pediatric asthma is associated with arginine, lysine, and methionine pathway alterations,” published in the January 2023 issue of Allergy & Immunology by Cottrill, et al.
Despite receiving therapy with inhaled corticosteroids, some children’s asthma remained poorly controlled, with frequent exacerbations. There were no consistent indicators of exacerbation-prone asthma in these kids except past exacerbations, and there was only a limited comprehension of the putative underlying processes. Researchers used mass spectrometry-based metabolomics to measure tiny compounds in the plasma of kids with asthma that is prone to flare-ups. They predicted that these kids’ plasma metabolomes would be different from those of kids with non-exacerbation-prone asthma.
From four juvenile asthma cohorts totaling 215 subjects—of whom 41 had exacerbation-prone asthma—plasma metabolites were collected and identified using a mass spectrometer. For the univariate analysis, high-confidence annotations were kept, and they were later verified in participants receiving large doses of inhaled corticosteroids. Cohort-specific metabolites weren’t included. The program MetaboAnalyst was used to find the pathways of interest. Reference standards were used to compute concentrations.
Children with exacerbation-prone asthma differed from kids with non-exacerbation-prone asthma in 32 different, cohort-independent metabolites, according to the research. Most metabolites were lowered in both asthma groups, but more so in exacerbation-prone asthma, as compared to levels reported in the literature for healthy children. Arginine, lysine, and methionine pathways were shown to be most affected by pathway analysis.
Children with asthma who were prone to flare-ups had abnormal levels of a number of plasma metabolites, most of which were connected to the arginine, lysine, and methionine pathways. Plasma metabolites may be possible indicators for children with asthma that are prone to exacerbations, while more testing was necessary.
Reference: jacionline.org/article/S0091-6749(22)01127-7/fulltext