Celiac disease (CD) is an autoimmune enteropathy linked to alterations of metabolism. Currently, limited untargeted metabolomic studies evaluating differences in the plasma metabolome of CD subjects have been documented. We engage in a metabolomic study that analyzes plasma metabolome in 17 children with CD treated with a gluten-free diet and 17 healthy control siblings in order to recognize potential changes in metabolic networks. Our data demonstrates the persistence of metabolic defects in CD subjects in spite of the dietary treatment, affecting a minor but significant fraction (around 4%, 209 out of 4893 molecular features) of the analyzed plasma metabolome. The affected molecular species are mainly, but not exclusively, lipid species with a particular affectation of steroids and derivatives (indicating an adrenal gland affectation), glycerophospholipids (to highlight phosphatidic acid), glycerolipids (with a special affectation of diacylglycerols), and fatty acyls (eicosanoids). Our findings are suggestive of an activation of the diacylglycerol-phosphatidic acid signaling pathway in CD that may potentially have detrimental effects via activation of several targets including protein kinases such as mTOR, which could be the basis of the morbidity and mortality connected with untreated CD. However, more studies are necessary to validate this idea regarding CD.
Keywords: celiac disease; diacylglycerols; fatty acyls; glycerophospholipids; mass spectrometry; plasma metabolomics; steroids.