Infection from severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) can lead to severe respiratory tract damage and acute lung injury. Therefore, it is crucial to study breath-associated biofluids not only to investigate the breath’s biochemical changes caused by SARS-CoV-2 infection, but also to discover potential biomarkers for the development of new diagnostic tools. In the present study, we performed an untargeted metabolomics approach using a bidimensional gas chromatography mass spectrometer (GCxGC-TOFMS) on exhaled breath condensate (EBC) from COVID-19 patients and negative healthy subjects to identify new potential biomarkers for the noninvasive diagnosis and monitoring of the COVID-19 disease. The EBC analysis was further performed in patients with acute or acute-on-chronic cardiopulmonary edema (CPE) to assess the reliability of the identified biomarkers. Our findings demonstrated that an abundance of EBC fatty acids can be used to discriminate COVID-19 patients and that they may have a protective effect, thus suggesting their potential use as a preventive strategy against the infection.
【저자키워드】 COVID-19, metabolomics, Breath analysis, GCxGC-MS, noninvasive analysis, 【초록키워드】 SARS-CoV-2, coronavirus, Biomarkers, reliability, SARS-COV-2 infection, Infection, Cardiopulmonary, diagnostic, acute lung injury, COVID-19 disease, breath, Patient, edema, respiratory tract, change, Fatty acid, protective effect, Potential biomarker, CPE, Analysis, COVID-19 patient, acute respiratory syndrome, biochemical, approach, identify, performed, caused, can be used, demonstrated, healthy subject, biofluid, noninvasive diagnosis, 【제목키워드】 condensate,