Cerebrospinal Fluid Lipid Profiles for Pediatric Meningitis Diagnosis

Feng Tang's proof-of-concept lipidomics dataset analyzes cerebrospinal fluid from pediatric meningitis patients. It contains lipid metabolite profiles from 13 CSF samples across 10 patients, grouped by disease type and phase. The data was generated using UPLC-MS/MS on a Q Exactive mass spectrometer and processed with LipidSearch software.

Use Cases

• Identify exploratory lipid biomarker candidates for purulent meningitis based on sphingolipid and dihexosylceramide alterations.
• Compare lipid profiles between viral and purulent meningitis based on phosphatidylserine and lysophosphatidylcholine differences.
• Evaluate the diagnostic potential of specific metabolites like LPC(20:3) and Hex2Cer(d42:3) using ROC analysis.
• Investigate disease-stage-specific lipid alterations between acute and recovery phases of meningitis.

Strengths

• Data is generated using high-resolution mass spectrometry (Q Exactive) and specialized lipidomics software (LipidSearch v.4.1).
• Includes paired samples from the same patients across acute and recovery phases, allowing for longitudinal comparison.
• Provides specific counts of altered metabolites (e.g., 30 increased and 45 decreased in PM_A vs. controls).

Limitations

• The dataset is very small, with only 13 samples from 10 patients, limiting statistical power.
• The authors explicitly state findings are hypothesis-generating and require validation in larger studies.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.

Provenance

Source

figshare

Collection Method

Lipidomics analysis of cerebrospinal fluid samples using UPLC-MS/MS.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-29 04:44:00; freshness should be verified.