Comparison of the effect of chemically and biologically induced inflammation on the volatile metabolite production of lung epithelial cells by GC×GC-TOFMS
Delphine Zanella, Monique Henket, Florence Schleich, Thibaut Dejong, Renaud Louis, Jean‐François Focant, Pierre‐Hugues Stefanuto
Abstract
, and a biological stress, exposing the cells to an inflammatory pool of sputum supernatants. Special attention was devoted to define proper negative and positive controls (8 different types) for our in vitro models, including healthy sputum co-culture. Sputum from 25 asthmatic and 8 healthy patients were collected to create each pool of supernatants. Each sample type was analyzed in 4 replicates using solid-phase microextraction (SPME) comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography hyphenated to time-of-flight mass spectrometry (GC×GC-TOFMS). This approach offers high resolving power for complex VOC mixtures. According to the type of inflammation induced, significantly different VOCs were produced by the epithelial cells compared to all controls. For both chemical and biological challenges, an increase of carbonyl compounds (54%) and hydrocarbons (31%) was observed. Interestingly, only the biological inflammation model showed a significant cell proliferation together with an increased VOC production linked to asthma airway inflammation. This study presents a complete GC×GC-TOFMS workflow for in vitro VOC analysis, and its potential to characterize complex lung inflammatory mechanisms.