Circulating Plasma Metabolomic Profiles Differentiate Rodent Models of Pulmonary Hypertension and Idiopathic Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension Patients

BACKGROUND Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is a severe progressive disease with systemic metabolic dysregulation. Monocrotaline (MCT)-induced and hypoxia-induced pulmonary hypertension (PH) rodent models are the most widely used preclinical models, however, whether or not these preclinical models recapitulate metabolomic profiles of PAH patients remain unclear. METHODS In this study, a targeted metabolomics panel of 126 small molecule metabolites was conducted. We applied it to the plasma of the 2 preclinical rodent models of PH and 30 idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension (IPAH) patients as well as 30 healthy controls to comparatively assess the metabolomic profiles of PAH patients and rodent models. RESULTS Significantly different metabolomics profiling and pathways were shown among the 2 classical rodent models and IPAH patients. Pathway analysis demonstrated that methionine metabolism and urea cycle metabolism were the most significant pathway involved in the pathogenesis of hypoxia-induced PH model and MCT-induced model, respectively, and both of them were also observed in the dysregulated pathways in IPAH patients. CONCLUSIONS These 2 models may develop PAH through different metabolomic pathways and each of the 2 classical PH model resembles IPAH patients in certain aspects.