Effects of Zinc Supplementation on Metabolomic Profiles in Tanzanian Infants: A Randomized Trial.

Background: Provision of zinc supplementation to young children has been associated with reduced infectious morbidity and better growth outcomes. However, the metabolic pathways underlying these outcomes are unclear, and metabolomic data from humans undergoing zinc supplementation, particularly infants, are generally lacking.

Objectives: This study aimed to examine the effect of zinc supplementation on metabolic profiles in Tanzanian infants aged 6 wk and 6 mo.

Methods: Blood samples were collected at age 6 wk and 6 mo from 50 Tanzanian infants who were enrolled in a randomized placebo-controlled trial of zinc supplementation (5 mg oral daily). Metabolomic analysis using an ultrahigh-performance liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectroscopy platform was performed to identify potential metabolomic profiles and biomarkers associated with zinc supplementation. Principal component analysis (PCA) was used to summarize metabolomic data from all samples. Two-way repeated measures analysis of variance with compound symmetry covariance structures were used to compare metabolome levels over time between infants in the 2 treatment arms.

Results: In PCA, the samples tended to be more separated by child age (6 wk compared with 6 mo) than by zinc supplementation status. We found that zinc supplementation affected a variety of metabolites associated with amino acid, lipid, nucleotide, and xenobiotic metabolism, including indoleacetate in the tryptophan metabolism pathway; 3-methoxytrosine and 4-hydrxoyphenylphruvate in the tyrosine pathway; eicosanedioate, 2-aminooctanoate, and N-acetyl-2-aminooctanoate in the fatty acid pathway; and N6-succinyladenosine in the purine metabolism pathway. Compared to the relatively small number of metabolites associated with zinc supplements, many infant metabolites changed significantly from age 6 wk to 6 mo.

Conclusions: Zinc supplementation, despite having overall clinical benefits, appears to induce limited metabolomic changes in blood metabolites in young infants. Future larger studies may be warranted to further examine metabolic pathways associated with zinc supplementation. The parent trial was registered at clinicaltrials.gov as NCT00421668.