The Potential Biomarker Panels for Identification of Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) Patients with and without Early Life Stress (ELS) by Metabonomic Analysis

ObjectiveThe lack of the disease biomarker to support objective laboratory tests still constitutes a bottleneck in the clinical diagnosis and evaluation of major depressive disorder (MDD) and its subtypes. We used metabonomic techniques to screen the diagnostic biomarker panels from the plasma of MDD patients with and without early life stress (ELS) experience.MethodsPlasma samples were collected from 25 healthy adults and 46 patients with MDD, including 23 patients with ELS and 23 patients without ELS. Furthermore, gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) coupled with multivariate statistical analysis was used to identify the differences in global plasma metabolites among the 3 groups.ResultsThe distinctive metabolic profiles exist either between healthy subjects and MDD patients or between the MDD patients with ELS experience (ELS/MDD patients) and the MDD patients without it (non-ELS/MDD patients), and some diagnostic panels of feature metabolites' combination have higher predictive potential than the diagnostic panels of differential metabolites.ConclusionsThese findings in this study have high potential of being used as novel laboratory diagnostic tool for MDD patients and it with ELS or not in clinical application.

【研究目的】目前，缺乏可支撑客观实验室检测的疾病生物标志物，仍是重性抑郁障碍（major depressive disorder, MDD）及其亚型临床诊断与评估的核心瓶颈。本研究采用代谢组学（metabonomic）技术，从伴与不伴早期生活应激（early life stress, ELS）经历的MDD患者血浆样本中筛选诊断性生物标志物组合。
【研究方法】本研究共纳入25名健康成年人与46名MDD患者，其中伴早期生活应激的MDD患者（ELS/MDD组）23例，不伴早期生活应激的MDD患者（non-ELS/MDD组）23例。采用气相色谱-质谱联用（gas chromatography/mass spectrometry, GC/MS）技术结合多变量统计分析方法，对3组受试者的血浆整体代谢物差异展开鉴定。
【研究结果】健康受试者与MDD患者之间，以及ELS/MDD组与non-ELS/MDD组之间，均存在显著差异的特征性代谢谱；部分由特征代谢物组合构成的诊断标志物面板，其预测效能优于单纯基于差异代谢物的诊断面板。
【研究结论】本研究结果具备较高的临床转化潜力，有望作为新型实验室诊断工具，用于MDD患者以及伴/不伴早期生活应激的MDD患者的临床诊断。