Unveiling the metabolomic profile of growth hormone deficiency children using NMR spectroscopy

The diagnosis of Growth Hormone Deficiency (GHD) during childhood has been the subject of much controversy over the last few years. Aiming to accurate medical treatment, there is a need for biomarker discovery.

To characterize the metabolic profile of GHD children, examine the effect of GH administration on the metabolic signature, and investigate the correlations between metabolites and IGF-1.

Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR)-based untargeted and targeted metabolomic approach applied to study the metabolic profiles of children with GHD. Plasma, serum, and urine samples were collected from twenty-two children diagnosed with GHD and forty-eight age matched controls from the Pediatric Endocrinology Unit of the University Hospital of Patras. Experimental data were examined by both multivariate and univariate statistical analysis.

The results of this pilot study revealed a different metabolic fingerprint of children with GHD in comparison to age-matched healthy individuals. However, the detected alterations in the metabolite patterns before and after GH treatment were subtle and of minor discriminative statistical power.

This study provides evidence that metabolome plays a pivotal role in GHD, but large-scale multicenter studies are warranted to validate the results.