INTRODUCTION The evaluation of volatile organic compounds(VOCs) emitted by human body offers a unique tool to set up new non-invasive devices for early diagnosis and long-lasting monitoring of most human diseases. However, their cellular origin and metabolic fate have not been completely elucidated yet, thus limiting their clinical application. Endothelium acts as an interface between blood and surrounding tissues. As such, it adapts its physiology in response to different environmental modifications thus playing a role in the pathogenesis of many metabolic and inflammatory diseases. OBJECTIVES Since endothelium specifically reshapes its physiologic functions upon environmental changes the objective of this study was to evaluate if and how pro-inflammatory stimuli affect VOC metabolism in endothelial cell in culture. METHODS Gas chromatography with mass spectrometric detection was applied to profile VOCs in the headspace of cultured endothelial cells (EC) in the absence or presence of the pro-inflammatory stimulus lipopolysaccharide (LPS). RESULTS We observed that, under resting conditions, EC affected the amount of 58 VOCs belonging to aldehyde, alkane and ketone families. Among these, LPS significantly altered the amount of 15 VOCs. ROC curves show a perfect performance (AUC = 1) for 10 metabolites including 1-butanol, 3-methyl-1-butanol and 2-ethyl-1-hexanol. DISCUSSION The emission and uptake of the aforementioned VOCs disclose potential unexplored metabolic pathways for EC that deserve to be investigated. Overall, we identified new candidate VOC potentially exploitable, upon experimental confirm in in vivo model of disease, as potential biomarkers of sepsis and pro-inflammatory clinical settings.

中文翻译：

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静息和促炎条件下内皮挥发性有机化合物的体外分析。

引言对人体排放的挥发性有机化合物（VOC）的评估提供了一种独特的工具，可用于建立新型的非侵入性设备，以对大多数人类疾病进行早期诊断和长期监测。然而，它们的细胞起源和代谢命运尚未完全阐明，因此限制了它们的临床应用。内皮充当血液与周围组织之间的界面。这样，它可以适应不同的环境变化，从而适应其生理机能，从而在许多代谢性疾病和炎性疾病的发病机理中发挥作用。目的由于内皮在环境变化时会特异性地重塑其生理功能，因此本研究的目的是评估促炎刺激是否以及如何影响培养物中内皮细胞中VOC的代谢。方法采用质谱检测气相色谱法在不存在或存在促炎性刺激性脂多糖（LPS）的情况下，对培养的内皮细胞（EC）顶空中的挥发性有机化合物（VOC）进行分析。结果我们观察到，在静止条件下，EC影响了属于醛，烷烃和酮家族的58种VOC的数量。其中，LPS显着改变了15种VOC的数量。ROC曲线显示10种代谢物（包括1-丁醇，3-甲基-1-丁醇和2-乙基-1-己醇）的理想性能（AUC = 1）。讨论上述VOC的排放和摄取揭示了EC潜在的未探索的代谢途径，值得研究。总体而言，根据实验确定的体内疾病模型，我们确定了可能被利用的新候选VOC，