Serum Metabolomics Reveals Metabolic Reprofiling and Perturbed Pathways after Aortic Dissection Surgery

Objective To apply untargeted metabolomics technology to systematically analyze changes in the serum metabolic profiles of patients after surgery for acute DeBakey type I aortic dissection, aiming to explore postoperative metabolic characteristics and evaluate their potential application value. Methods This study enrolled 30 postoperative patients (AT) and 30 healthy controls (HC). Metabolite detection was performed using ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (UHPLC-MS). After strict quality control, multivariate statistical analysis was employed to screen for differential metabolites, followed by KEGG pathway enrichment and topological analysis. The discriminatory performance of key metabolites was assessed using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves. Results A total of 791 differential metabolites were identified. The metabolic profiles showed significant separation between the postoperative and healthy control groups. The differential metabolites were primarily enriched in pathways such as aminoacyl-tRNA biosynthesis, glycine/serine/threonine metabolism, and ABC transporters. Several metabolites exhibited promising discriminatory power. Conclusion This study reveals extensive metabolic reprogramming following aortic dissection surgery, indicating synergistic perturbations in amino acid metabolism, energy metabolism, and membrane transport pathways. The identified metabolic features provide a potential molecular basis for postoperative metabolic monitoring.