A correlation-based network for biomarker discovery in obesity with metabolic syndrome

Background: Obesity is associated with chronic activation of the immune system and an altered gut microbiome, leading to increased risk of chronic disease development. As yet, no biomarker profile has been found to distinguish individuals at greater risk of obesity-related disease. The aim of this study was to explore a correlation-based network approach to identify existing patterns of immune-microbiome interactions in obesity.

Results: The current study performed correlation-based network analysis on five different datasets obtained from 11 obese with metabolic syndrome (MetS) and 12 healthy weight men. These datasets included: anthropometric measures, metabolic measures, immune cell abundance, serum cytokine concentration, and gut microbial composition. The obese with MetS group had a denser network (total number of edges, n = 369) compared to the healthy network (n = 299). Within the obese with MetS network, biomarkers from the immune cell abundance group was found to be correlated to biomarkers from all four other datasets. Conversely in the healthy network, immune cell abundance was only correlated with serum cytokine concentration and gut microbial composition. These observations suggest high involvement of immune cells in obese with MetS individuals. There were also three key hubs found among immune cells in the obese with MetS networks involving regulatory T cells, neutrophil and cytotoxic cell abundance. No hubs were present in the healthy network.

Conclusion: These results suggest a more complex interaction of inflammatory markers in obesity, with high connectivity of immune cells in the obese with MetS network compared to the healthy network. Three key hubs were identified in the obese with MetS network, involving Treg, neutrophils and cytotoxic cell abundance. Compared to a t-test, the network approach offered more meaningful results when comparing obese with MetS and healthy weight individuals, demonstrating its superiority in exploratory analysis.