1H NMR Urinary Metabolomics Profiling of Newborns with Congenital Human Cytomegalovirus Infection: Insights into Metabolic Alterations

Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) is the leading cause of congenital infections resulting in severe morbidity and mortality among newborns worldwide. Currently, the most significant prognostic factor of congenital cytomegalovirus (cCMV) infection is the time of maternal infection, with a more severe clinical phenotype if the mother’s first outbreak occurs during the first trimester of pregnancy. Nonetheless, the pathogenesis of cCMV infection has still to be completely characterized. In particular, little is known about the metabolic response triggered by HCMV in congenitally infected newborns. As such, urinary metabolic profiling by 1H nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) might represent a promising tool to be exploited in the context of cCMV. This study aims to investigate the impact of HCMV infection on the urine metabolome in a population of congenitally infected newborns and uninfected controls by 1H NMR spectroscopy combined with multivariate statistical analysis. The 1H NMR spectra of pa...