Metabolomic and lipoproteomic differences and similarities between COVID-19 and other types of pneumonia

COVID-19 infection has revealed significant effects on the human blood metabolome and lipoproteome, which have been coherently observed in different cohorts worldwide and across the various waves of SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. As one of the main clinical manifestations of COVID-19 is a severe acute respiratory illness, it is pertinent to explore whether this metabolic/lipoproteomic disturbance is associated with the respiratory symptoms. To this purpose we are here reporting comparative¹H NMR analyses of the plasma of 252 COVID-19 patients and of patients with non-COVID-19 interstitial (24 individuals) or lobar (21 individuals) pneumonia, all matched by age, gender and disease severity. The analysis is based on 24 metabolites and 114 lipoprotein parameters. Several common traits are observed among the three groups, albeit with some peculiar features characteristic of each group. The main differences were observed between the lobar cases and all the others.