ORCID
- Wilde, Michael: 0000-0003-0726-890X
Abstract
AbstractThe majority of metabolomics studies to date have utilised blood serum or plasma, biofluids that do not necessarily address the full range of patient pathologies. Here, correlations between serum metabolites, salivary metabolites and sebum lipids are studied for the first time. 83 COVID-19 positive and negative hospitalised participants provided blood serum alongside saliva and sebum samples for analysis by liquid chromatography mass spectrometry. Widespread alterations to serum-sebum lipid relationships were observed in COVID-19 positive participants versus negative controls. There was also a marked correlation between sebum lipids and the immunostimulatory hormone dehydroepiandrosterone sulphate in the COVID-19 positive cohort. The biofluids analysed herein were also compared in terms of their ability to differentiate COVID-19 positive participants from controls; serum performed best by multivariate analysis (sensitivity and specificity of 0.97), with the dominant changes in triglyceride and bile acid levels, concordant with other studies identifying dyslipidemia as a hallmark of COVID-19 infection. Sebum performed well (sensitivity 0.92; specificity 0.84), with saliva performing worst (sensitivity 0.78; specificity 0.83). These findings show that alterations to skin lipid profiles coincide with dyslipidaemia in serum. The work also signposts the potential for integrated biofluid analyses to provide insight into the whole-body atlas of pathophysiological conditions.
DOI
10.1038/s41598-022-16123-4
Publication Date
2022-07-13
Publication Title
Scientific Reports
Volume
12
Issue
1
ISSN
2045-2322
Embargo Period
2022-08-26
Organisational Unit
School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences
Recommended Citation
Spick, M., Lewis, H., Frampas, C., Longman, K., Costa, C., Stewart, A., Dunn-Walters, D., Greener, D., Evetts, G., Wilde, M., Sinclair, E., Barran, P., Skene, D., & Bailey, M. (2022) 'An integrated analysis and comparison of serum, saliva and sebum for COVID-19 metabolomics', Scientific Reports, 12(1). Available at: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-16123-4