Serum metabolomics reveal metabolic changes in coal workers' pneumoconiosis progression

Chronic inhalation of coal dust causes coal workers' pneumoconiosis (CWP), which is one of the leading occupational diseases. Coal workers' pneumoconiosis is currently incurable, posing a serious public health threat. Identifying the underlying molecular mechanisms of CWP is critical to overcome this challenge. Nowadays, metabolomics has bridged underlying molecular alterations with disease progression, providing a useful tool for researching the pathogenesis and finding biomarkers. In this study, a comprehensive view of metabolic characterization of serum from CWP patients at all stages was provided using untargeted metabolomic analysis. As a result, when compared to healthy controls, the specific alteration patterns of each stage were observed. The results showed arginine and cortisol could be core metabolites in CWP progression. Moreover, five metabolites that significantly changed when going from "solely chronic coal-dust exposure" to an early stage were screened out as potential biomarkers. The receiver operating characteristic results were 0.691-0.862 (individual) and 0.884-0.907 (combined). These findings will benefit the application of metabolomics to understand the pathological mechanism and identify diagnostic biomarkers for CWP.