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. 2023 Apr 12:2023:5937308.
doi: 10.1155/2023/5937308. eCollection 2023.

Metabolite Comparison between Spleen-Deficiency and Healthy Children

Zhiyi Liang  1 , Qianzeng Fu  1   2 , Haiman Li  1   2 , Xuan Xu  1 , Panting Ding  1 , Wei Tang  2 , Yong Ye  2 , Xiangning Shao  2 , Xiaowen Tan  3 , Xiaojun Wang  3 , Xun Luo  4 , Jun Wang  5 , Dejun Wang  1 , Huan Zhong  1 , Mi Liu  1
Affiliations

Metabolite Comparison between Spleen-Deficiency and Healthy Children

Zhiyi Liang et al. Evid Based Complement Alternat Med. .

Abstract

Objective: From the perspective of metabolomics, this study compares the metabolomics characteristics of feces and urine between children with spleen-deficiency and healthy children to explain the scientific connotation of children with spleen-deficiency susceptibility to digestive system diseases from the metabolic level and provide a scientific basis for further research.

Methods: This study included 20 children with spleen-deficiencies and 17 healthy children. Children's symptom scores, height, and weight were recorded in groups, and feces and urine samples were collected. The samples were detected using ultrahigh-performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry. The data were analyzed using multivariate statistical analysis such as principal component analysis (PCA) and partial least squares discriminant analysis (PLS-DA). Related differential metabolites were identified through database comparisons between two groups based on the MS and KEGG.

Results: Compared to healthy children, the metabolites glucuronic acid, xanthine, and indole-3-acetaldehyde tend to be reduced in children with spleen-deficiency. Moreover, these children showed an increase in metabolites such as quinic acid, adenine, 4-methyl-5-thiazole-ethanol, 3-formyl indole, and 5-hydroxy indole-3-acetic acid. The condition affected many of the critical metabolic pathways, including the metabolism of tryptophan, cysteine, methionine, and pentose phosphate.

Conclusion: The children with spleen-deficiency had disorders at the metabolic level, which might be due to factors such as diet, personal preferences, and genes, leading to various symptoms, making spleen-deficiency children more prone to suffer from digestive diseases than healthy children. The results set a basis for the research on children's TCM constitution, which can be a reference to further studies to deal with the spleen-deficiency.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Process of the experiment.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Ion map (the left figures are results of the spleen deficiency group, while the right ones belong to healthy group. Results of (a) feces under positive ion mode; (b) feces under negative ion mode; (c) urine under positive ion mode; (d) urine under negative ion mode.
Figure 3
Figure 3
PCA score chart. Results of (a) feces under positive ion mode; (b) urine under positive ion mode; (c) feces under negative ion mode; (d) urine under negative ion mode.
Figure 4
Figure 4
PLS-DA score chart. Results of (a) feces under positive ion mode; (b) urine under positive ion mode; (c) feces under negative ion mode; (d) urine under negative ion mode.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Cross-validation chart of PLS-DA model. Results of (a) feces under positive ion mode; (b) urine under positive ion mode; (c) feces under negative ion mode; (d) urine under negative ion mode.
Figure 6
Figure 6
VIP diagram of PLS-DA. Results of (a) feces under positive ion mode; (b) urine under positive ion mode; (c) feces under negative ion mode; (d) urine under negative ion mode.
Figure 7
Figure 7
Heatmap analysis. Results of (a) feces under positive ion mode; (b) urine under positive ion mode; (c) feces under negative ion mode; (d) urine under negative ion mode.
Figure 8
Figure 8
Metabolic pathways of feces and urine. Results of (a) feces under positive ion mode; (b) urine under positive ion mode; (c) feces under negative ion mode; (d) urine under negative ion mode.
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