Metabolomics strategy for diagnosing urinary tract infections

Carly C. Y. Chan, Daniel B. Gregson, Spencer D. Wildman, Dominique G. Bihan, Ryan A. Groves, Raied Aburashed, Thomas Rydzak, Keir Pittman, Nicolas Bavel and Ian A. Lewis ()
Additional contact information
Carly C. Y. Chan: University of Calgary
Daniel B. Gregson: University of Calgary
Spencer D. Wildman: University of Calgary
Dominique G. Bihan: University of Calgary
Ryan A. Groves: University of Calgary
Raied Aburashed: University of Calgary
Thomas Rydzak: University of Calgary
Keir Pittman: University of Calgary
Nicolas Bavel: University of Calgary
Ian A. Lewis: University of Calgary

Nature Communications, 2025, vol. 16, issue 1, 1-10

Abstract: Abstract Metabolomics has emerged as a mainstream approach for investigating complex metabolic phenotypes but has yet to be integrated into routine clinical diagnostics. Metabolomics-based diagnosis of urinary tract infections (UTIs) is a logical application of this technology since microbial waste products are concentrated in the bladder and thus could be suitable markers of infection. We conducted an untargeted metabolomics screen of clinical specimens from patients with suspected UTIs and identified two metabolites, agmatine, and N6-methyladenine, that are predictive of culture-positive samples. We developed a 3.2-min LC-MS assay to quantify these metabolites and showed that agmatine and N6-methyladenine correctly identify UTIs caused by 13 Enterobacterales species and 3 non-Enterobacterales species, accounting for over 90% of infections (agmatine AUC > 0.95; N6-methyladenine AUC > 0.89). These markers were robust predictors across two blinded cohorts totaling 1629 patient samples. These findings demonstrate the potential utility of metabolomics in clinical diagnostics for rapidly detecting UTIs.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-57765-y Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:16:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-025-57765-y

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-57765-y

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().