Perturbations of Glutathione and Sphingosine Metabolites in Port Wine Birthmark Patient-Derived Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells

Port Wine Birthmarks (PWBs) are a congenital vascular malformation on the skin, occurring in 1–3 per 1000 live births. We have recently generated PWB-derived induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) as clinically relevant disease models. The metabolites associated with the pathological phenotypes of PWB-derived iPSCs are unknown, and so we aim to explore them in this study. Metabolites were separated by ultra-performance liquid chromatography and screened with electrospray ionization mass spectrometry. Orthogonal partial least-squares discriminant, multivariate, and univariate analyses were used to identify differential metabolites (DMs). KEGG analysis was used to determine the enrichment of metabolic pathways. A total of 339 metabolites was identified. There were 22 DMs, among which nine were downregulated—including sphingosine—and 13 were upregulated, including glutathione in PWB iPSCs, as compared to controls. Pathway enrichment analysis confirmed the upregulation of glutathione and the downregulation of sphingolipid metabolism in PWB-derived iPSCs as compared to normal ones. We next examined the expression patterns of the key molecules associated with glutathione metabolism in PWB lesions. We found that hypoxia-inducible factor 1α (HIF1α), glutathione S-transferase Pi 1 (GSTP1), γ-glutamyl transferase 7 (GGT7), and glutamate cysteine ligase modulatory subunit (GCLM) were upregulated in PWB vasculatures as compared to blood vessels in normal skin. Other significantly affected metabolic pathways in PWB iPSCs included pentose and glucuronate interconversions; amino sugar and nucleotide sugars; alanine, aspartate, and glutamate; arginine, purine, D-glutamine, and D-glutamate; arachidonic acid, glyoxylate, and dicarboxylate; nitrogen, aminoacyl-tRNA biosynthesis, pyrimidine, galactose, ascorbate, and aldarate; and starch and sucrose. Our data demonstrated that there were perturbations in sphingolipid and cellular redox homeostasis in PWB vasculatures, which could facilitate cell survival and pathological progression. Our data implied that the upregulation of glutathione could contribute to laser-resistant phenotypes in some PWB vasculatures.