Abstract
Traditional Chinese medicine classifies psoriasis (Ps) according to clinical manifestations, and its different clinical manifestations imply the pathogenesis and material evolution basis of Ps, especially biomarkers that are meaningful to identification of Ps, treatment response, and elucidation of the pathogenesis of the disease. This study aims to screen differential metabolites in plasma of psoriasis vulgaris (PV) of blood heat syndrome based on a widely targeted metabolomic technique and to analyze syndrome metabolic markers and metabolic pathways. Forty-five PV patients were recruited, including 21 cases of the blood heat syndrome group (BH-PPG), 24 cases of the non-blood-heat syndrome group (NBH-PPG), and 30 healthy cases of the normal control group (NPG). The UPLC-MS/MS detection platform, a self-developed database, and multivariate statistical analysis were applied to investigate the plasma metabolic differences. The biomarkers related to blood heat syndrome were screened using the principal component analysis method. A total of 479 metabolites were detected in the three groups of plasma samples; 72 different metabolites were sorted out in the BH-PPG/NPG group, 82 in the NBH-PPG/NPG group, and 8 in the BH-PPG/NBH-PPG group. Differential metabolites mainly consist of metabolites of organic acids, amino acids, carbohydrates, and nucleotides. Multiple metabolites ginkgolic acid, pyrroloquinoline quinone, L-aspartic acid, and citramalic acid were expected to be the potential biomarkers of blood heat syndrome PV. The formation and evolution processes may be associated with disorders and regulation of metabolic pathways, ferroptosis, carbon metabolism, and purine metabolism.