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Altered Metabolic Profiles of the Plasma of Patients with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis

Authors :
Kuo-Hsuan Chang
Chia-Ni Lin
Chiung-Mei Chen
Rong-Kuo Lyu
Chun-Che Chu
Ming-Feng Liao
Chin-Chang Huang
Hong-Shiu Chang
Long-Sun Ro
Hung-Chou Kuo
Source :
Biomedicines, Vol 9, Iss 12, p 1944 (2021)
Publication Year :
2021
Publisher :
MDPI AG, 2021.

Abstract

Currently, there is no objective biomarker to indicate disease progression and monitor therapeutic effects for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). This study aimed to identify plasma biomarkers for ALS using a targeted metabolomics approach. Plasma levels of 185 metabolites in 36 ALS patients and 36 age- and sex-matched normal controls (NCs) were quantified using an assay combining liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry and direct flow injection. Identified candidates were correlated with the scores of the revised ALS Functional Rating Scale (ALSFRS-r). Support vector machine (SVM) learning applied to selected metabolites was used to differentiate ALS and NC subjects. Forty-four metabolites differed significantly between ALS and NC subjects. Significant correlations with ALSFRS-r score were seen in 23 metabolites. Six of them showing potential to distinguish ALS from NC—asymmetric dimethylarginine (area under the curve (AUC): 0.829), creatinine (AUC: 0.803), methionine (AUC: 0.767), PC-acyl-alkyl C34:2 (AUC: 0.808), C34:2 (AUC: 0.763), and PC-acyl-acyl C42:2 (AUC: 0.751)—were selected for machine learning. The SVM algorithm using selected metabolites achieved good performance, with an AUC of 0.945. In conclusion, our findings indicate that a panel of metabolites were correlated with disease severity of ALS, which could be potential biomarkers for monitoring ALS progression and therapeutic effects.

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
22279059
Volume :
9
Issue :
12
Database :
Directory of Open Access Journals
Journal :
Biomedicines
Publication Type :
Academic Journal
Accession number :
edsdoj.20f07390615146a5bc2f97ee0a498d71
Document Type :
article
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.3390/biomedicines9121944