Serum metabolites of hypertension among Chinese adolescents aged 12-17 years

The regulatory mechanisms of hypertension in youth are incompletely understood. We aimed to identify potential serum metabolic alterations associated with hypertension in adolescents. A 1:1 age- and sex-matched case-control study including 30 hypertensive adolescents aged 12-17 years and 30 normotensive adolescents for the training set and 14 hypertensive adolescents and 14 normotensive adolescents for the test set was performed, which came from one cross-sectional study in Ningxia, China. Hypertension was defined based on blood pressure (BP) values measured on three different occasions according to the BP reference of Chinese children and adolescents. Untargeted ultra-high-performance liquid tandem chromatography quadrupole time of flight mass spectrometry was used to identify differential metabolites between hypertensive and normotensive adolescents. A total of 77 metabolites in positive mode and 101 in negative mode were identified (VIP > 1.0 and P < 0.05). After adjustment for the false discovery rate, 4 differential metabolites in positive mode and 10 in negative mode were found (Q value < 0.05). The logistic regression model adjusted for body mass index and lipid profile selected four significant metabolites (4-hydroxybutanoic acid, L-serine, acetone, and pterostilbene). The main metabolic pathways of amino acid metabolism, pantothenate and CoA biosynthesis, glyoxylate and dicarboxylate metabolism, fructose and mannose metabolism, and linoleic acid metabolism may contribute to the development of hypertension in Chinese adolescents. Based on the receiver operating characteristic plot, 4-hydroxybutanoic acid, L-serine, acetone, and pterostilbene may preliminarily help distinguish hypertension from normal BP in adolescents, with AUC values of 0.857 in the training set and 0.934 in the test set. The identified metabolites and pathways may foster a better understanding of hypertension pathogenesis in Chinese adolescents.

Automated summary

This study identified metabolic differences between hypertensive and normotensive adolescents through untargeted metabolomics, pinpointing several significant metabolites associated with hypertension in youth, particularly involving amino acid metabolism and other pathways. These findings contribute to a better understanding of the pathogenesis of hypertension in Chinese adolescents.