Specific sweat metabolite profile in ocular Behcet's disease.

BACKGROUND: Behcet's disease (BD) is an autoimmune disorder with the serious possibility of blindness, calling for further research on its pathogenesis. Our aim was to study the metabolite composition of sweat in BD and to identify possible biomarkers. METHODS: Metabolomics analysis was performed on sweat samples from 20 BD patients and 18 normal controls by liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry. RESULTS: A significantly different metabolic profile of sweat was observed when BD patients were compared with healthy controls. The result of the orthogonal partial least squared-discrimination analysis (OPLS-DA) showed that these two comparison groups could be separated with a relatively satisfactory fitting degree (R2Y = 0.995 and Q2 = 0.817 in positive ion mode; R2Y = 0.991 and Q2 = 0.721 in negative ion mode). Based on OPLS-DA, a panel of metabolites was selected as candidate biomarkers, including l-citrulline, l-pyroglutamic acid, urocanic acid, 2-oxoadipic acid, cholesterol 3-sulfate, and pentadecanoic acid. CONCLUSION: This is the first report on the metabolite profile of sweat in BD. Our results demonstrated a significantly different metabolite composition of sweat in BD compared to that of healthy controls.