by Sisi Zhuang, Lili Zuo Background Sepsis in children can be caused by a variety of pathogens, with bacteria and viruses being the most common. This study used metabolomics to identify differences in metabolic profiles and potential biomarkers among pathogens causing pediatric sepsis.
Methods Serum metabolomic profiles of pediatric bacterial and viral sepsis were obtained from the MetaboLights database (MTBLS563). Principal component analysis (PCA), partial least squares discriminant analysis (PLS-DA), and orthogonal PLS-DA were employed to explore metabolic distinctions.
Differential expression metabolites (DEMs) were identified using the Wilcoxon rank-sum test and variable importance in projection (VIP) scores. Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) enrichment, receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis, Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost) modeling, and Shapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP) analysis were conducted to determine diagnostic metabolites and evaluate model performance.
Results PCA and PLS-DA revealed distinct metabolic profiles among bacterial pediatric sepsis (PBID_PS), viral pediatric sepsis (VID_PS), and healthy controls. Fourteen differential metabolites were identified, primarily enriched in nitrogen metabolism, arginine biosynthesis, and the metabolism of alanine, aspartate, and glutamate.
PLOS ONE (Medicine) published a clinical update in Research Highlights on 11 Jun 2026.
The item focuses on Metabolomics analysis identifies differential metabolites and potential diagnostic biomarkers among pediatric sepsis subtypes.
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