3. Discussion
This study provides a unique and detailed snapshot of the mucosal metabolite profile in clearly stratified UC patients (treatment-naïve, newly diagnosed, and deep remission patients). The reported 177 metabolites revealed a distinctive metabolic fingerprint in active UC patients compared with healthy controls. In addition, the metabolomic profiling coupled with pathway analysis provided a deeper understanding of the metabolome changes among UC patients with ongoing active inflammation. Several metabolic pathways were identified, including pathways related to amino acid metabolism, SCFA and LCFA metabolism, and glutathione metabolism.
To our knowledge, this is the first study of mucosal metabolomic profile in treatment-naïve and deep remission UC patients. In contrast, previous studies were restricted to bio-fluids. It is well established that tissues are under greater homeostatic regulation than plasma
16. Thus, it provides highly consistent measurements among individuals [
16], and better understanding of the molecular basis of diseases [
17]. Moreover, previous studies included treated and untreated UC patients. In the current work, however, only treatment- naïve UC patients were represented in the active UC group. In addition, the state of remission was defined by strict criteria (endoscopy, histology, and normalized TNF gene expression). Notably, remission patients were excluded from the pathway analysis. This stratification of patients allows capturing key metabolic alterations that are exclusively associated with the UC onset. Furthermore, the combination of two analytical metabolomic platforms allowed analysing metabolites in different polarity and molecular weight ranges, and gaining a wider prospective of the metabolome [
18].
According to the pathway analysis, the omega-6 linoleic acid (ω-6 LA 18:2) metabolism had the highest impact score in the pathway analysis. Ω-6 LA, is an essential fatty acid, which is metabolised to dihomo-γ-linolenic acid (ω-6 DGLA 20:3). The latter is converted by fatty acid desaturase 1 (FADS1) to ω-6 arachidonic acid (AA 20:4) [
19]. DGLA and AA are esterified with glycerol in the phospholipids, such as LPC, in the cell membrane, and released by phospholipase A2 during inflammation [
19]. The released AA and DGLA are metabolised to form bioactive pro- and anti-inflammatory mediators. In the current data, LA was found to be lower in active UC patients. In contrast, the mucosal levels of LPC (20:3) and LPC (20:4) were higher in treatment-naïve UC compared to healthy controls, and were considered among the top discriminant metabolites between the study groups. This finding supports evidence suggesting that the onset of IBD is characterized by an imbalance between pro- and anti-inflammatory mediators [
20]. For instance, the mucosal levels of AA related pro-inflammatory metabolites were elevated in treatment-naïve UC patients [
21]. In addition, variations in the FADS1 gene were found to be associated with higher susceptibility to IBD [
22,
23]. Therefore, it seems that the increased metabolism of LA to AA is a crucial step in the IBD pathology.
Another important finding is the alteration in the amino acid metabolism, namely the tryptophan (Trp) metabolism and the alanine, aspartate and glutamate metabolism. Recently, Trp emerged as the hub of host–microbiota crosstalk considering that Trp metabolism pathways leading to serotonin, kynurenine (Kyn), and indole derivatives are under the direct or indirect control of the microbiota [
24]. It was shown that supplementation with Trp improves the clinical symptoms and reduces the pro-inflammatory cytokines production in experimental colitis [
25]. Furthermore, indole derivatives act as ligands for the aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AHR) inducing local production of interleukin-22 (IL-22), which maintains intestinal homeostasis, promotes immune defense and tissue repair. In the current study, we report a decreased mucosal level of Trp and an increased level of Kyn. This is in alignment with previous studies, which have reported low serum level of Trp in UC patients [
10,
12]. Notably, a large cohort study consisting of 148 UC patients has concluded that a higher Trp metabolism rate is associated with UC activity [
26].
Furthermore, the current data demonstrates several perturbation in amino acid metabolism during UC. For instance, the mucosal levels of glutamic acid and asparagine were low in healed mucosa, and were gradually elevated in UC remission patients and active UC patients. Accordingly, glutamic acid and asparagine were discriminative between treatment-naïve UC patients, UC patients in remission and healthy controls. Interestingly, in a previous study, high levels of amino acids were detected in stool samples from IBD patients, and were linked with the gut microbiota dysbiosis [
27]. In addition, higher urinary level of asparagine and glutamic acid were reported [
28]. Notably, previous study of mucosal amino acids profile in IBD patients demonstrated increased levels of several amino acid, such as aspartate, glutamine, and glutamic acid in active UC patients [
29]. However, we cannot determine to which degree the reported changes in mucosal amino acid levels are caused by gut microbiota.
Altered butyrate metabolism is another evidence of the bacterial dysbiosis in UC. It is well documented that the alteration in butyrate and other short chain fatty acid (SCFA) production is a hallmark of active UC patients [
30]. For instance, it was found that dysbiosis in IBD patients is characterized by a decrease in the number of SCFAs/butyrate-producing bacteria [
31]. Another study has reported reduction of butyrate and propionate in stool samples of IBD patients [
32]. Although the current data did not show significant changes in butyrate related metabolites in the mucosa, the decreased mucosal level of glutamine in UC patients might indicate that glutamine is being used as energy source instead of butyrate, as previously reported [
33]. Interestingly, previous data have shown low abundance of proteins related to this specific utilization of butyrate in UC patients’ mucosa [
34].
The variation in the acylcarnitine profile, demonstrated in the current data, could also indicate energy impairment. Acylcarnitine is a mediator that transfers catabolism products of fatty acids and amino acids into mitochondria for β-oxidation [
35]. This is a key step in the process of energy production. Therefore, the accumulation of medium and long chain fatty acyl carnitine, according to the current data, provides further evidence of the mitochondrial dysfunction. However, it is unclear yet whether the mitochondrial dysfunction in IBD is caused by a dysbiosis or if it is induced by the pro-inflammatory cytokines, such as TNF [
36].
Although the inclusion criteria for remission patients was mucosal healing and immunological remission [
37], the present work reveals a distinct metabolome in UC deep remission patients with respect to healthy controls and active UC patients. This comes in alignment with previously published data which reports a distinct mucosal lipid composition fingerprint in UC deep remission patients compared with healthy controls and treatment-naïve UC patients [
38]. Consequently, from a clinical point of view, these findings supports the emerging importance of ‘Omics’ analysis in improving the current scoring system, monitoring the disease progression and improving the treatment strategies [
39].
The relatively small sample size in the current study preclude subgroup analysis according to the severity of the disease. Hence, the reported results are exploratory and need to be validated by a larger cohort, which include inflamed and non-inflamed mucosa from UC patients. In addition, to further get insight in the mechanistic behind the alteration in the metabolic pathways, gene expression and/or protein data, preferably from the same patients, should be studied. Combining such multi omics data might also underline metabolite changes caused by the gut microbiota. Furthermore, we suggest the absolute quantification and identification of metabolites involved in the pathways of interest, especially tryptophan and butyrate pathways using targeted analysis. This is especially of interest for future evaluation of clinical validity, where absolute quantitative levels is a necessity. Suggestively, future studies also need to explore the relationship between metabolic changes, microbiota dysbiosis, and the activity of IBD. This approach will provide key insight into the disease outcome and response to treatment.