Blood Lipids Profiling of Preterm Neonates in the First Day of Life for Identification of Early Biomarkers of Sepsis and Pneumonia

The early period of postnatal development of premature infants is often complicated by bacterial infections, in particular respiratory infections, which in adverse course can be transformed into generalized forms (sepsis), leading to life-threatening conditions. The development of these complications may be associated with delayed diagnosis and delayed start of targeted therapy. Thus, the development of new approaches to the diagnosis of inflammatory pathological processes, especially in the first hours of life, is an important area of research in modern neonatology. In this work the profiling of blood plasma lipids from newborn premature babies was performed in order to identify potential markers of inflammatory processes. The study involved three groups of patients who were diagnosed with pneumonia, pneumonia complicated by sepsis, or respiratory distress syndrome in the early postnatal period. As a result of HPLC-MS analysis of blood plasma lipid extracts, characteristic molecular profiles were obtained, which revealed significant differences between the groups under study. Analysis of the molecular composition showed differential representation of lipid classes such as phosphatidylcholines, phosphatidylethanolamines, di- and triglycerides, sphingolipids and lysophospholipids. Our results may indicate that the inflammatory processes at the local and systemic levels affect lipid metabolism and their composition in blood plasma. Moreover, each pathology—sepsis, pneumonia or RDS—has its own specific lipid profile, which may be useful not only to detect inflammation but also to differentiate inflammation-associated diseases from each other.