ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Pediatr.
Sec. Pediatric Pulmonology
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fped.2025.1549431
This article is part of the Research TopicWhat's on the Horizon for Asthma Treatment?View all articles
Plasma Lipids, Amino Acids, and Their Metabolic Pathways as Potential Biomarkers for Differential Diagnosis of Cold and Heat Syndrome Asthma in Children: A Preliminary Study
Provisionally accepted
- 1Shenzhen Children's Hospital, Shenzhen, China
- 2School of Basic medicine and Clinical Pharmacy, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Childhood asthma has a significant effect on growth and development. Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) has notable advantages in asthma treatment; however, a modern scientific basis for the differentiation of cold and heat syndromes in asthma remains lacking.This study employed non-targeted metabolomics to analyze the plasma metabolic profiles in children aged 5-14 years with cold or heat syndrome asthma. Plasma metabolites were examined to identify and compare metabolic differences among children with asthma and healthy controls, as well as between cold and heat asthma syndromes, with the aim of uncovering potential biomarkers and providing a foundation for differential diagnosis.Of the 92 participants, 48 had cold syndrome asthma, 14 had heat syndrome asthma, and 30 were healthy controls. A total of 50 differential plasma metabolites were identified between the TCM asthma syndrome groups and healthy controls in both positive and negative ion modes. These metabolites were primarily phospholipids and amino acids enriched in the lipid metabolism, amino acid metabolism, and glucose metabolism pathways. Furthermore, 18 differential metabolites were identified between the cold and heat asthma groups, with significant enrichment in the amino acid metabolic pathways. Notably, 36 common differential metabolites that mainly were 3 lipids, amino acids and its related metabolites between cold asthma and heat asthma, cold asthma and the healthy group, and heat asthma and the healthy group were identified of which can be considered as biomarkers.Lipids, amino acids, and their associated metabolic pathways have been identified as potential biomarkers for distinguishing cold and heat asthma syndromes in children.These findings contribute to the modern interpretation of TCM syndrome differentiation and may support the evaluation of the therapeutic effects of TCM-based asthma treatment.
Keywords: Children asthma, cold asthma, Heat asthma, TCM syndromes, Metabolomics, Plasma biomarkers
Received: 21 Dec 2024; Accepted: 09 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Sun, Huang, Yao, Chen, Cui, Ding and Wan. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Xuansheng Ding, School of Basic medicine and Clinical Pharmacy, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, 210009, Jiangsu Province, China
Lisheng Wan, Shenzhen Children's Hospital, Shenzhen, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.