Age-Associated Alterations in the Metabolome of Human Vitreous in Bacterial Endophthalmitis

Endophthalmitis is a severe inflammatory condition due to intraocular infections that often leads to irreversible blindness. This study aimed to understand the age-dependent metabolic alterations in the vitreous of patients with bacterial endophthalmitis.

The study included the vitreous metabolome of patients with bacterial endophthalmitis (group 1, n = 15) and uninfected controls (group 2, n = 14), which were further stratified into three groups according to their age: young (0-30 years), middle (31-60 years), and elderly (>60 years). Vitreous samples were subjected to untargeted metabolomic analysis using high-resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS)m and acquired mass spectrometry data were analyzed using MetaboAnalyst 6.0. The altered metabolites with log2FC of ≥2/≤2, P < 0.05, and variable importance in projection > 1 were considered significant.

In a total of 109 endogenous metabolites identified, young and elderly patients with endophthalmitis showed 52 (elevated, 25; reduced, 27; P < 0.05) and 27 (elevated, 19; reduced, 8; P < 0.05) significantly altered metabolites, respectively, compared to their age-matched controls. Additionally, 27 metabolites were differentially expressed in young patients with endophthalmitis compared to the older group. The crucial metabolic pathways dysregulated in the older infected population were de novo purine synthesis and salvage, carnitine, polyamine (spermidine), lipids (prostaglandins), and amino acid (taurine, methionine, histidine) which could possibly be attributed to the increased disease severity and inflammation observed in a clinical setting.

Despite the erratic metabolic changes observed in the younger group infected with endophthalmitis when compared to age-matched controls, dysregulation in the specific pathways such as purine, carnitine, arachidonic acid, and polyamine metabolism could possibly alter the immunological exacerbation observed in the older group.