Integrative lipidomics and metabolomics for system-level understanding of the metabolic syndrome in long-term treated HIV-infected individuals

Abstract

Abstract People living with HIV (PLWH) require life-long anti-retroviral treatment and often present with comorbidities such as metabolic syndrome (MetS). A systematic lipidomic characterization and its association with metabolism is currently missing. In this study, we included 100 PLWH with MetS and 100 without MetS from the Copenhagen comorbidity in HIV infection (COCOMO) cohort to examine whether and how lipidome profiles associated with MetS in PLWH. We combined several standard biostatistical, machine learning, and network analysis techniques to investigate the lipidome systematically and comprehensively. Our observations indicate an increased abundance of the glycerolipids and an association between structural composition patterns of glycerolipids in PLWH with MetS. Further integration of the key metabolites identified earlier in the same population and clinical data with lipidomics suggest disruption of the glutamate and fatty acid metabolism. suggest their involvement in pathogenesis of PLWH with MetS.