Untargeted metabolomic analysis in cats with naturally occurring inflammatory bowel disease and alimentary small cell lymphoma

Mark R Ackermann,Rachel Pilla,Jonathan A Lidbury,Betty Chow,J Scot Estep,Joerg M Steiner,Sina Marsilio,Steve L Hill,Jan S Suchodolski,Benjamin Sarawichitr

doi:10.1038/s41598-021-88707-5

Abstract

Feline chronic enteropathy (CE) is a common gastrointestinal disorder in cats and mainly comprises inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and small cell lymphoma (SCL). Differentiation between IBD and SCL can be diagnostically challenging. We characterized the fecal metabolome of 14 healthy cats and 22 cats with naturally occurring CE (11 cats with IBD and 11 cats with SCL). Principal component analysis and heat map analysis showed distinct clustering between cats with CE and healthy controls. Random forest classification revealed good group prediction for healthy cats and cats with CE, with an overall out-of-bag error rate of 16.7%. Univariate analysis indicated that levels of 84 compounds in cats with CE differed from those in healthy cats. Polyunsaturated fatty acids held discriminatory power in differentiating IBD from SCL. Metabolomic profiles of cats with CE resembled those in people with CE with significant alterations of metabolites related to tryptophan, arachidonic acid, and glutathione pathways.

Highlights

Feline chronic enteropathy (CE) is a common gastrointestinal disorder in cats and mainly comprises inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and small cell lymphoma (SCL)
A total of 36 cats were enrolled into this study, 14 healthy cats and 22 cats with chronic enteropathy (11 with IBD and 11 with SCL)
The feline chronic enteropathy activity index (FCEAI) did not differ between cats with IBD and cats with SCL

Summary

Introduction

Feline chronic enteropathy (CE) is a common gastrointestinal disorder in cats and mainly comprises inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and small cell lymphoma (SCL). Feline chronic enteropathy (CE) is a spontaneously arising disorder in cats that is especially common in the elderly cat population. It is defined as the chronic presence (i.e., presence for longer than 3 weeks) of signs of gastrointestinal disease such as weight loss, vomiting and/or diarrhea in the absence of infectious intestinal or extraintestinal causes[1]. The most common types of CE in cats are inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and alimentary small cell lymphoma (SCL)[2,3,4,5]. Feline alimentary SCL shows some histological parallels to monomorphic epitheliotropic intestinal T-cell lymphoma (MEITL) in people

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Results

Conclusion