BACKGROUND Plasmodium vivax is one of the leading causes of malaria worldwide. Infections with this parasite cause diverse clinical manifestations, and recent studies revealed that infections with P. vivax can result in severe and fatal disease. Despite these facts, biological traits of the host response and parasite metabolism during P. vivax malaria are still largely underexplored. Parasitemia is clearly related to progression and severity of malaria caused by P. falciparum, however the effects of parasitemia during infections with P. vivax are not well understood. RESULTS We conducted an exploratory study using a high-resolution metabolomics platform that uncovered significant associations between parasitemia levels and plasma metabolites from 150 patients with P. vivax malaria. Most plasma metabolites were inversely associated with higher levels of parasitemia. Top predicted metabolites are implicated into pathways of heme and lipid metabolism, which include biliverdin, bilirubin, palmitoylcarnitine, stearoylcarnitine, phosphocholine, glycerophosphocholine, oleic acid and omega-carboxy-trinor-leukotriene B4. CONCLUSIONS The abundance of several plasma metabolites varies according to the levels of parasitemia in patients with P. vivax malaria. Moreover, our data suggest that the host response and/or parasite survival might be affected by metabolites involved in the degradation of heme and metabolism of several lipids. Importantly, these data highlight metabolic pathways that may serve as targets for the development of new antimalarial compounds.

中文翻译：

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间日疟原虫疟疾周围寄生虫血症的全代谢组关联研究。


背景技术间日疟原虫是全世界疟疾的主要原因之一。这种寄生虫的感染会导致多种临床表现，最近的研究表明，间日疟原虫感染可导致严重和致命的疾病。尽管有这些事实，间日疟原虫疟疾期间宿主反应和寄生虫代谢的生物学特征仍然很大程度上未被充分研究。寄生虫血症显然与恶性疟原虫引起的疟疾的进展和严重程度有关，但寄生虫血症在间日疟原虫感染期间的影响尚不清楚。结果我们使用高分辨率代谢组学平台进行了一项探索性研究，发现 150 名间日疟原虫疟疾患者的寄生虫血症水平与血浆代谢物之间存在显着关联。大多数血浆代谢物与较高水平的寄生虫血症呈负相关。最受预测的代谢物与血红素和脂质代谢途径有关，包括胆绿素、胆红素、棕榈酰肉碱、硬脂酰肉碱、磷酸胆碱、甘油磷酸胆碱、油酸和 omega-羧基-三去甲-白三烯 B4。结论 几种血浆代谢物的丰度根据间日疟原虫疟疾患者体内寄生虫血症的水平而变化。此外，我们的数据表明，宿主反应和/或寄生虫存活可能受到参与血红素降解和几种脂质代谢的代谢物的影响。重要的是，这些数据强调了可以作为开发新抗疟化合物目标的代谢途径。