Plasma Metabolite and Cytokine Profiles in Multiple Sclerosis Patients

A 2026 study analyzed plasma samples from 20 relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS) patients and 22 healthy controls using LC-MS/MS metabolomics. The data identifies 26 differentially abundant metabolites, including long-chain fatty acids like palmitic acid (FA 16:0) and arachidonic acid (FA 20:4), and measures levels of pro-inflammatory factors and chemokines such as TNF-α, IL17A, and PDGFB.

Use Cases

• Train a classifier to predict RRMS status using metabolite levels like FA 12:0, FA 18:1, FA 16:0, and FA 20:4 as features.
• Analyze correlations between specific fatty acids (e.g., FA 20:4) and immune markers (e.g., IL17A) to model metabolic-immune interactions.
• Validate the diagnostic potential of fatty acid biomarkers by replicating ROC curve analysis for combinations like FA 12:0 and FA 18:1.
• Investigate pathway enrichment for the 26 differentially abundant metabolites in amino acid and lipid synthesis/metabolism.

Strengths

• Includes data from a controlled study with 20 RRMS patients and 22 age- and sex-matched healthy controls.
• Identifies 26 differentially abundant metabolites with statistical significance (e.g., FA 16:0 with P_adj < 0.001).
• Reports specific correlation coefficients between metabolites and cytokines, such as between FA 20:4 and IL17A (r = 0.370).
• Provides AUC values from ROC analysis for biomarker combinations, with a four-fatty-acid panel achieving an AUC of 0.952.

Limitations

• Small sample size of 42 total subjects limits statistical power and generalizability of findings.
• Data is presented in a DOCX document (17.2 KB), not a structured, machine-readable table, requiring manual extraction for analysis.
• Study focuses on a single time point during relapse, lacking longitudinal data on metabolite changes over the disease course.

Provenance

Source

figshare, authored by Xiao-xi Zhu.

Collection Method

Plasma samples analyzed via liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS)-based untargeted metabolomics.

Time Range

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Freshness

Last updated March 2026.

Geography

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