Stratification of hypertension and SARS-CoV-2 infection by quantitative NMR spectroscopy of human blood serum

Abstract

Abstract Background Diagnostic approaches like the nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR) based quantification of metabolites, lipoproteins, and inflammation markers has helped to identify typical alterations in the blood serum of COVID-19 patients. However, confounders such as sex, and comorbidities, which strongly influence the metabolome, were often not considered. Therefore, the aim of this NMR study was to consider sex, as well as arterial hypertension (AHT), when investigating COVID-19-positive serum samples in a large age-and sex matched cohort. Methods NMR serum data from 329 COVID-19 patients were compared with 305 healthy controls. 134 COVID-19 patients were affected by AHT. These were analyzed together with NMR data from 58 hypertensives without COVID-19. In addition to metabolite, lipoprotein, and glycoprotein data from NMR, common laboratory parameters were considered. Sex was considered in detail for all comparisons. Results Here, we show that several differences emerge from previous NMR COVID-19 studies when AHT is considered. Especially, the previously described triglyceride-rich lipoprotein profile is no longer observed in COVID-19 patients, nor an increase in ketone bodies. Further alterations are a decrease in glutamine, leucine, isoleucine, and lysine, citric acid, HDL-4 particles, and total cholesterol. Additionally, hypertensive COVID-19 patients show higher inflammatory NMR parameters than normotensive patients. Conclusions We present a more precise picture of COVID-19 blood serum parameters. Accordingly, considering sex and comorbidities should be included in future metabolomics studies for improved and refined patient stratification. Due to metabolic similarities with other viral infections, these results can be applied to other respiratory diseases in the future.