{
  "abstract": "Sepsis rewires host metabolism, and these changes may be readable in the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) released from the body. Whether whole-body VOC profiles can be mapped onto specific disrupted biochemical pathways has not been tested. In this discovery-phase, single-time-point feasibility study, polymicrobial sepsis was induced by cecal ligation and puncture (CLP) in C57BL/6 mice (14 CLP, 10 sham controls). Whole-body headspace gases were collected 12 h after surgery and analysed by thermal desorption-gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. After preprocessing, 113 features were tested univariately with Benjamini-Hochberg correction and by orthogonal partial least squares discriminant analysis (OPLS-DA). Candidate VOCs (FDR < 0.1, |log2FC| > 0.26, VIP > 1.0) were annotated against PubChem, KEGG COMPOUND, and the Human Metabolome Database. OPLS-DA separated the groups (R2X = 0.489, R2Y = 0.981, Q2 = 0.777; P = 0.001 by 1,000 permutations), and leave-one-out cross-validation classified 95.8% of animals correctly, though n = 24. Of 54 candidate VOCs, 18 had established endogenous origins; 16 fell and 2 rose in septic mice. Pathway mapping indicated four perturbed domains: lipid peroxidation (12 depleted VOCs), ketone body metabolism (3 decreased), cholesterol/isoprenoid metabolism (isoprene, decreased), and putative gut microbiota-associated metabolism (toluene and carbon disulfide, increased). All 18 endogenous VOCs kept candidate status after environment-derived VOCs were removed. Because whole-body headspace volatiles superimpose tissue metabolism, ventilation, activity, and background, these results suggest the septic volatilome may be mapped onto distinct pathway perturbations; ventilation and activity effects cannot be excluded. These findings generate testable hypotheses for non-invasive metabolic phenotyping in sepsis.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [
    "Department of Anesthesiology, Changhai Hospital, Naval Medical University, Shanghai, China.",
    "Department of Naval Nutrition and Food Hygiene, Faculty of Naval Medicine, Naval Medical University, Shanghai, China.",
    "Key Laboratory of Biological Defense, Ministry of Education, Naval Medical University, Shanghai, China."
  ],
  "article_type": "brief report",
  "arxiv": null,
  "author_total": 7,
  "authors": [
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "Wan-Yi Feng"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "Yu Chen"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        1,
        2
      ],
      "name": "Xiu-Ya Zhang"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        1,
        2
      ],
      "name": "Rong Fu"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "Qin Hu"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        1,
        2
      ],
      "name": "Feng-Feng Mo"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "Jia-Feng Wang"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/2b2580wb2jsjx.bib",
  "cited_by": 0,
  "doi": "10.3389/fmed.2026.1978491",
  "fulltext_url": "https://europepmc.org/articles/PMC13713802",
  "id": "2b2580wb2jsjx",
  "issns": [
    "2296-858X"
  ],
  "landing_url": "https://europepmc.org/article/MED/42953112",
  "language": "eng",
  "licence": "CC-BY",
  "licence_label": "CC BY",
  "licence_source": "article",
  "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "metadata_licence": null,
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "heading",
      "Brief Research Report"
    ],
    [
      "openalex",
      "2204|Advanced Chemical Sensor Technologies"
    ]
  ],
  "openalex": "W7221781381",
  "pdf_url": "https://europepmc.org/articles/PMC13713802?pdf=render",
  "pmcid": "PMC13713802",
  "pmid": "42953112",
  "published": "2026-10-14",
  "publisher": "Frontiers Media SA",
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/2b2580wb2jsjx.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-10-31T00:20:41Z",
      "native_id": "MED:42953112",
      "source": "europepmc",
      "url": "https://europepmc.org/article/MED/42953112"
    },
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-11-01T12:21:24Z",
      "native_id": "PMC13713802",
      "source": "pmc",
      "url": "https://doi.org/10.3389/fmed.2026.1978491"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "medicine",
      "origin": "journal-openalex:F27",
      "subfield": "general"
    }
  ],
  "title": "Whole-body volatile organic compound profiling reveals metabolic pathway perturbations in a murine polymicrobial sepsis model: a feasibility study.",
  "title_text": "Whole-body volatile organic compound profiling reveals metabolic pathway perturbations in a murine polymicrobial sepsis model: a feasibility study.",
  "type": "peer-reviewed",
  "updated_at": "2026-11-01T12:21:24Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/2b2580wb2jsjx",
  "venue": "Frontiers in medicine",
  "versions": []
}