Related Experiment Video
Updated: Oct 11, 2025
Identification and Quantification of Deranged Metabolites in Critically Ill Patients Using NMR-Based Metabolomics
Published on: November 29, 2024
COVID-19-specific metabolic imprint yields insights into multiorgan system perturbations
Martin Cornillet1, Benedikt Strunz1, Olav Rooyackers2
1Center for Infectious Medicine, Department of Medicine Huddinge, Karolinska Institutet, Karolinska University Hospital, Stockholm, Sweden.
Insights
This study reveals a distinct metabolic signature in severe COVID-19 patients, shifting after virus seroconversion. Adjusting for confounders, researchers identified metabolic pathways linked to immune activation and organ damage, including neurological effects.
Area of Science:
- Metabolomics
- Immunology
- Virology
Background:
- COVID-19 impacts multiple organ systems, with known links between circulating metabolome and disease severity.
- Existing research highlights the need for a deeper understanding of COVID-19's metabolic landscape and its relationship with disease progression.
Purpose of the Study:
- To comprehensively assess the metabolome in hospitalized COVID-19 patients.
- To define a COVID-19-specific metabolic signature by adjusting for confounding factors.
- To integrate metabolic data with proteomic and immunological findings to understand multiorgan system perturbations.
Main Methods:
- In-depth assessment of 1129 unique metabolites in 27 hospitalized COVID-19 patients.
- Integration of metabolomic data with large-scale proteomic and immunology data.
- Systematic adjustment for patient-specific confounding factors like comorbidities and xenobiotics.
Main Results:
- Over half of detected metabolic alterations were attributable to confounding factors.
- A COVID-19-specific metabolic imprint was identified, which changed following SARS-CoV-2 seroconversion.
- Metabolic trajectories correlated with immune activation pathways and organ damage, including neurological inflammation.
Conclusions:
- This study refines the understanding of multiorgan system perturbations in severe COVID-19.
- The identified metabolic signature offers insights into disease mechanisms and progression.
- Metabolomic analysis, adjusted for confounders, is crucial for defining disease-specific alterations.
Abstract:
Corona disease 2019 (COVID-19) affects multiple organ systems. Recent studies have indicated perturbations in the circulating metabolome linked to COVID-19 severity. However, several questions pertain with respect to the metabolome in COVID-19. We performed an in-depth assessment of 1129 unique metabolites in 27 hospitalized COVID-19 patients and integrated results with large-scale proteomic and immunology data to capture multiorgan system perturbations. More than half of the detected metabolic alterations in COVID-19 were driven by patient-specific confounding factors ranging from comorbidities to xenobiotic substances. Systematically adjusting for this, a COVID-19-specific metabolic imprint was defined which, over time, underwent a switch in response to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 seroconversion. Integration of the COVID-19 metabolome with clinical, cellular, molecular, and immunological severity scales further revealed a network of metabolic trajectories aligned with multiple pathways for immune activation, and organ damage including neurological inflammation and damage. Altogether, this resource refines our understanding of the multiorgan system perturbations in severe COVID-19 patients.
