Understanding acute metabolic decompensation in propionic and methylmalonic acidemias: a deep metabolic phenotyping approach

Background Pathophysiology of life-threatening acute metabolic decompensations (AMD) in propionic acidemia (PA) and isolated methylmalonic acidemia (MMA) is insufficiently understood. Here, we study the metabolomes of PA and MMA patients over time, to improve insight in which biochemical processes are at play during AMD. Methods Longitudinal data from clinical chemistry analyses and metabolic assays over the life-course of 11 PA and 13 MMA patients were studied retrospectively. Direct-infusion high-resolution mass spectrometry was performed on 234 and 154 remnant dried blood spot and plasma samples of PA and MMA patients, respectively. In addition, a systematic literature search was performed on reported biomarkers. All results were integrated in an assessment of biochemical processes at play during AMD. Results We confirmed many of the metabolite alterations reported in literature, including increases of plasma valine and isoleucine during AMD in PA patients. We revealed that plasma leucine and phenylalanine, and urinary pyruvic acid were increased during AMD in PA patients. 3-hydroxyisovaleric acid correlated positively with plasma ammonia. We found that known diagnostic biomarkers were not significantly further increased, while intermediates of the branched-chain amino acid (BCAA) degradation pathway were significantly increased during AMD. Conclusions We revealed that during AMD in PA and MMA, BCAA and BCAA intermediates accumulate, while known diagnostic biomarkers remain essentially unaltered. This implies that these acidic BCAA intermediates are responsible for metabolic acidosis. Based on this, we suggest to measure plasma 3-hydroxyisovaleric acid and urinary ketones or 3-hydroxybutyric acid for the biochemical follow-up of a patient's metabolic stability.