Background: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) has higher mortality when developing to acute exacerbation (AECOPD); hence, the early intervention of COPD is critical for preventing AECOPD. Exploring the serum metabolites associated with acute exacerbation in patients with COPD will contribute to the early intervention of COPD.
Methods: In the study, a non-targeted metabolomics strategy combined with multivariate statistical methods was performed to explore the metabolic profiling of COPD developing acute exacerbation, to screen the potential metabolites associated with AECOPD and to analyze the potential value of these metabolites in predicting the development of COPD.
Results: Serum lysine, glutamine, 3-hydroxybutyrate, pyruvate and glutamate levels were significantly higher, while 1-methylhistidine, isoleucine, choline, valine, alanine, histidine and leucine levels were significantly lower in AECOPD patients, compared with stable COPD patients after normalization based on the healthy controls. Moreover, eight metabolic pathways were significantly altered (P< 0.05) in the serum of AECOPD patients compared with the stable COPD population, including purine metabolism, glutamine and glutamate metabolism, arginine biosynthesis, butyrate metabolism, ketone body synthesis and degradation, and linoleic acid metabolism. In addition, the correlation analysis between metabolites and AECOPD patients demonstrated that an M-score based on a weighted sum of concentrations of four metabolites including pyruvate, isoleucine, 1-methylhistidine and glutamine were significantly associated with the acute exacerbation of pulmonary ventilation function in COPD patients.
Conclusion: Altogether, the metabolite score based on a weighted sum of concentrations of four serum metabolites was associated with an increased risk of COPD developing acute exacerbation, which will provide a new insight for the understanding of COPD development.
Keywords: COPD, AECOPD, acute exacerbation, metabolomics, metabolites