The impacts of biologic treatment on metabolic profiling in psoriasis

Psoriasis is an immune-mediated inflammatory disease commonly accompanied by various metabolic disorders. It is widely known that biologics could affect the metabolic status and comorbidities in psoriasis patients, however, the effects of biologics on metabolism in psoriasis patients remain poorly understood. The aim of this study was to elucidate the characteristic changes of metabolic profiling in psoriasis vulgaris (PsV) patients before and after applying biologics. Plasma samples were collected from a retrospective cohort of 43 PsV patients. Non-targeted metabolomics analyses were performed using liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) to compare the metabolic profiles before and after applying adalimumab (ADA) or ixekizumab (IXE) for 4 weeks. Additionally, correlation analyses were conducted to investigate the associations between metabolite expression levels and clinical characteristics. The biologics significantly affected the metabolic profiles of PsV patients especially in glycerophospholipids (GPs). First, phosphatidylcholine (PC), unsaturated lysophosphatidylcholine (LPC), unsaturated lysophosphatidic acid (LPA) and unsaturated lysophosphatidylethanolamine (LPE) were significantly up-regulated, whereas phosphatidylethanolamine (PE), saturated LPC, saturated LPA and saturated LPE were predominantly down-regulated after biologic treatment. What is more, the changes in PE and LPA were mainly observed after applying IXE instead of ADA. Second, we also found GPs including PC, unsaturated LPC, unsaturated LPA and unsaturated LPE were primarily negatively correlated with disease severity, whereas, PE, saturated LPC, saturated LPA and saturated LPE displayed inverse correlations. Biologics could affect GP metabolism and facilitate the transition of metabolic status from a pro-inflammatory to an anti-inflammatory phenotype in PsV patients.