The Immunometabolic Atlas: A tool for design and interpretation of metabolomics studies in immunology

Abstract

Immunometabolism, which concerns the interplay between metabolism and the immune system, is increasingly recognized as a potential source of novel drug targets and biomarkers. In this context, the use of metabolomics to identify metabolic characteristics associated with specific functional immune response processes is of value. Currently, there is a lack of tools to determine known associations between metabolites and immune processes. Consequently, interpretation of metabolites in metabolomics studies in terms of their role in the immune system, or selection of the most relevant metabolite classes to include in metabolomics studies, is challenging. Here, we describe the Immunometabolic Atlas (IMA), a public web application and library of R functions to infer immune processes associated with specific metabolites and vice versa. The IMA derives metabolite-immune process associations utilizing a protein-metabolite network analysis algorithm that associates immune system-associated annotated proteins in Gene Ontology to metabolites. We evaluated IMA inferred metabolite-immune system associations using a text mining strategy, identifying substantial overlap, but also demonstrating a significant chemical space of immune system-associated metabolites that should be confirmed experimentally. Overall, the IMA facilitates the interpretation and design of immunometabolomics studies by the association of metabolites to specific immune processes.