1H NMR metabolomics study for a Multiple Sclerosis mouse model: Effect of CD4+ T cell-specific SPTLC2 deletion

Abstract

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a T cell-mediated autoimmune disease modeled by experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE); given that SPTLC2 is a key enzyme in sphingolipid biosynthesis linked to MS pathology, this NMR-based metabolomics study aimed to characterize the metabolic signature resulting from T cell-specific SPTLC2 conditional knock-out (KO) in EAE mice. Serum samples from unrecombined control EAE mice and T cell-specific SPTLC2 KO EAE mice were analyzed using OPLS-DA and the Mann-Whitney test (FDR < 0.05). Multivariate analysis revealed a complete and statistically robust separation between the two groups (OPLS-DA: R2Y = 0.902, Q2 = 0.899, p < 0.001), indicating a massive metabolic alteration induced by the T cell-specific SPTLC2 deletion. Univariate analysis and the S-Plot confirmed that core metabolites, including Lactate, Alanine, Glutamine, Pyruvate, Citrate, and Trimethylamine, were significantly upregulated in the T cell-specific SPTLC2 KO group, while Glucose and Phenylalanine were downregulated (FDR << 0.05). These findings collectively demonstrate that T cell-specific SPTLC2 deletion fundamentally disrupts central energy and amino acid metabolism in the EAE model, positioning this sphingolipid biosynthesis enzyme as a critical metabolic regulator of T cell function and autoimmune disease pathology.