Integrated omics analysis of sweat reveals an aberrant amino acid metabolism pathway in Vogt-Koyanagi-Harada disease.

Abstract

Vogt-Koyanagi-Harada (VKH) disease is an autoimmune disease leading to visual impairment. Its pathogenic mechanisms remain poorly understood. Our purpose was to investigate the distinctive protein and metabolic profiles of sweat in patients with VKH disease. In the present study, proteomics and metabolomics analysis was performed on 60 sweat samples (30VKH patients and 30normal controls) using liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry. Parallel reaction monitoring (PRM) analysis was used to validate the results of our omics analysis. In total, we were able to detect 716proteins and 175metabolites. Among them, 116proteins (99decreased and 17increased) were observed to be significantly different in VKH patients when compared to controls. Twenty-one differentially expressed metabolites were identified in VKH patients, of which 18 included choline, L-tryptophan, betaine and L-serine were reduced, while the rest were increased. Our multi-omics strategy reveals an important role for the amino acid metabolic pathway in the pathogenesis of VKH disease. Significant differences in proteins and metabolites were identified in the sweat of VKH patients and, to some extent, an aberrant amino acid metabolism pathway may be a pathogenic factor in the pathogenesis of VKH disease.