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Analysis of Breath and Environment VOCs in Health and Disease

A special issue of Molecules (ISSN 1420-3049). This special issue belongs to the section "Analytical Chemistry".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 June 2024) | Viewed by 388

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, University Hospital Aachen, RWTH University Aachen, 52074 Aachen, Germany
Interests: mental health; biomarkers; neuroimaging; volatile organic compounds; proteomics

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Guest Editor
Medical Systems Technology, OVGU University Magdeburg, 39106 Magdeburg, Germany
Interests: medical systems; breath gas

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Neuropsychiatric disorders are increasingly recognized as leading causes of disease burden. The WHO estimates a 25% increase in mental disorders during the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, behavioral adaptation is needed in view of the climate crisis, a process that further poses a risk for mental health. To date, objective markers are not available, in particular for psychiatric disorders such as depression and schizophrenia, and there is a pressing need to identify biotypes in neuropsychiatric disorders that require different therapies. Nevertheless, signatures from the metabolome and microbiome have already been introduced as candidates for diagnostic and treatment support. A marker particularly applicable for psychiatric disorders is one that can be obtained noninvasively, without much discomfort for patients, and multiple times daily, if necessary. Recent developments are the introduction of breath gas measurements using mass spectrometry to identify volatile organic compounds (VOCs), as well as the investigation of the human microbiome or proteome analysis from blood. With respect to VOCs, these measurements can also capture signatures from the environment.

In this Special Issue, we aim to collect papers that address the identification of such markers in the field of neuropsychiatric disorders including, e.g., depression, PTSD, bipolar disorders, neurodegenerative disorders and stroke.

Prof. Dr. Thomas Frodl
Prof. Dr. Christoph Hoeschen
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • breath markers
  • volatile organic compounds
  • VOCs
  • neuropsychiatric disorders
  • mental health
  • proteomics
  • biotypes
  • metabolomics

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

13 pages, 688 KiB  
Article
Breath Analysis: Identification of Potential Volatile Biomarkers for Non-Invasive Diagnosis of Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD)
by Alessia Di Gilio, Jolanda Palmisani, Marirosa Nisi, Valentina Pizzillo, Marco Fiorentino, Stefania Rotella, Nicola Mastrofilippo, Loreto Gesualdo and Gianluigi de Gennaro
Molecules 2024, 29(19), 4686; https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules29194686 - 2 Oct 2024
Viewed by 213
Abstract
Recently, volatile organic compound (VOC) determination in exhaled breath has seen growing interest due to its promising potential in early diagnosis of several pathological conditions, including chronic kidney disease (CKD). Therefore, this study aimed to identify the breath VOC pattern providing an accurate, [...] Read more.
Recently, volatile organic compound (VOC) determination in exhaled breath has seen growing interest due to its promising potential in early diagnosis of several pathological conditions, including chronic kidney disease (CKD). Therefore, this study aimed to identify the breath VOC pattern providing an accurate, reproducible and fast CKD diagnosis at early stages of disease. A cross-sectional observational study was carried out, enrolling a total of 30 subjects matched for age and gender. More specifically, the breath samples were collected from (a) 10 patients with end-stage kidney disease (ESKD) before undergoing hemodialysis treatment (DIAL); (b) 10 patients with mild-moderate CKD (G) including 3 patients in stage G2 with mild albuminuria, and 7 patients in stage G3 and (c) 10 healthy controls (CTRL). For each volunteer, an end-tidal exhaled breath sample and an ambient air sample (AA) were collected at the same time on two sorbent tubes by an automated sampling system and analyzed by Thermal Desorption–Gas Chromatography–Mass Spectrometry. A total of 110 VOCs were detected in breath samples but only 42 showed significatively different levels with respect to AA. Nonparametric tests, such as Wilcoxon/Kruskal–Wallis tests, allowed us to identify the most weighting variables able to discriminate between AA, DIAL, G and CTRL breath samples. A promising multivariate data mining approach incorporating only selected variables (showing p-values lower than 0.05), such as nonanal, pentane, acetophenone, pentanone, undecane, butanedione, ethyl hexanol and benzene, was developed and cross-validated, providing a prediction accuracy equal to 87% and 100% in identifying patients with both mild–moderate CKD (G) and ESKD (DIAL), respectively. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Analysis of Breath and Environment VOCs in Health and Disease)
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