EBC metabolomics for asthma severity

Asthma is a heterogeneous disease with diverse severity and represents a considerable socio-economic
burden. Exhaled Breath Condensate (EBC) is a biofluid directly obtained from the airway lining fluid
non-invasively. We attempted to discriminate severe from mild-to-moderate asthma using EBC
metabolomics based on both NMR and UHPLC-MS techniques. 36 patients were included in this study (15
patients with severe and 21 with mild-to-moderate asthma). EBC was collected and analyzed using both
NMR and UHPLC-MS techniques for possible metabolites. Using PLS and oPLS analysis for the UHPLC-MS
data, no metabolite was found to be sufficient for the discrimination of asthma severity. However,
when another PLS-regression model was applied five metabolites were found to discriminate severe
from mild-to-moderate asthma. Amino-acid lysine was the only metabolite that discriminated the two
study groups using NMR data ( p = 0.04, t -test with Welch's correction, AUC 0.66). EBC is an ...

Source: Journal of Breath Research - July 1, 2020 Category: Respiratory Medicine Authors: P Ntontsi, V Ntzoumanika, S Loukides, D Benaki, E Gkikas, E Mikros and P Bakakos Source Type: research