LAUSR

Ureteropelvic junction obstruction (UPJO) constitutes the predominant cause of obstructive nephropathy in both neonates and infants, with fundamental questions regarding its mechanism, assessment and treatment that remain still unanswered. The aim of this study was to elucidate potential differences through serum metabolic profiling of surgical cases of infants with UPJO compared to both non-surgical cases and healthy age matched controls. Early diagnosis of renal dysfunction in this cohort based on highlighted biomarkers was the ultimate goal. Thus, serum samples were collected from 20 patients preoperatively, 19 patients with mild stenosis treated conservatively, and 17 healthy controls. All samples were subjected to targeted metabolomics analysis by Hydrophilic Interaction Liquid Chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry (HILIC LC-MS/MS). Both univariate and multivariate statistical analysis were performed. PCA and OPLS-DA score plots showed that the studied groups differed significantly, with a panel of metabolites, including creatinine, L-tryptophan, choline and L-aspartate, distinguishing patients who required surgery from those followed by systematical monitoring as well as from healthy controls, showing high performance as indicators of UPJO disease. The mass spectrometry data is available at the Center for Computational Mass Spectrometry (ccms) website, where it has been assigned as MassIVE MSV000085063 (ftp://massive.ucsd.edu/MSV000085063/). The data can be accessed directly via it's project doi:10.25345/C5HX3M.