The Metabolomic And Lipidomic Analyses Of COVID-19 Convalescent Patients

The emerging SARS-CoV-2 infection caused a total of more than 160 million confirmed cases at the end of May 2021,which has been a global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019(COVID-19),and caused enormous public health pressure and economic losses in the world.As the epidemic situation is well controlled in China,the vast majority of patients with COVID-19 are well treated.However,metabolic changes in convalescent patients with COVID-19 remain unknown.The study of metabolic patterns in convalescent patients with COVID-19 would be helpful to understand the possible sequelae.To this end,we collaborated with Wuhan Institute of Virology,CAS and Wuhan Jinyintan Hospital to carry out plasma metabolomics and lipidomics analyses in convalescent patients with COVID-19.According to the clinical information,we divided convalescent patients with COVID-19 into three subgroups:ordinary convalescent patients with antibody(CA),prolonged SARS-CoV-2 infection but being recovered from COVID-19 symptoms(PI)and antibody-faded convalescent patients(CO),to compare with age-and sex-matched healthy subjects(H).As a result,we found that the CA individuals were not fully recovered in the aspect of metabolism,and the PI individuals were marked by elevated lipid droplet biogenesis and reduced fatty acid ω-oxidation.More interestingly,we identified that non-oxidative pentose phosphate pathway(PPP)and the levels of arachidonic acid(AA)-derived eicosanoids were aberrant in CO individuals.Our findings show that aberrant metabolism of PPP and eicosanoids is associated with and probably contribute to the faster fading of SARS-CoV-2-specific antibodies in the CO individuals.In conclusion,we identified the correlation between metabolic heterogeneity and antibody response in convalescent patients with COVID-19.