Serum metabolites hint at pathogenic pathways in myopia

A recent study has identified 20 serum metabolites that could identify high myopia, indicating the involvement of energy metabolism, oxidative stress, and amino acid metabolism pathways.

Forty adults with high myopia and 40 with low myopia participated in the study. Nontargeted gas chromatography coupled with time-of-flight mass spectrometry was used to conduct a metabolomic analysis of serum samples from both patient groups.

Twenty serum metabolites were identified as biomarkers that could potentially distinguish high from low myopia. Twelve metabolites were enriched (such as citric acid, aminomalonic acid, and palmitoleic acid), while eight were lowered (such as alanine, mannose, and itaconic acid) in high myopia.

Alanine had the best discriminative ability, with an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.71, followed by citric acid (AUC, 0.69) and aminomalmonic acid and mannose (AUC, 0.65 for both).

Pathway analysis showed that the identified metabolites could be mapped to seven pathways: selenoamino acid metabolism; alanine, aspartate, and glutamate metabolism; cysteine and methionine metabolism; glycolysis or gluconeogenesis; biotin metabolism; and glyoxylate and dicarboxylate metabolism.

The citrate cycle was also significantly affected, suggesting that the metabolites identified played a role in its regulation.

“The identification of novel metabolite markers for high myopia provides insights into potential new pathogenic pathways for this ocular condition and holds translational value in risk stratification and the development of new therapeutic measures,” the researchers said.