Biomedicines

Application of SWATH Mass Spectrometry and Machine Learning in the Diagnosis of Inflammatory Bowel Disease Based on the Stool Proteome

Elmira Shajari, David Gagné, Mandy Malick, Patricia Roy, Jean-François Noël, Hugo Gagnon, Marie A Brunet, Maxime Delisle, François-Michel Boisvert, Jean-François Beaulieu

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) flare-ups exhibit symptoms that are similar to other diseases and conditions, making diagnosis and treatment complicated. Currently, the gold standard for diagnosing and monitoring IBD is colonoscopy and biopsy, which are invasive and uncomfortable procedures, and the fecal calprotectin test, which is not sufficiently accurate. Therefore, it is necessary to develop an alternative method. In this study, our aim was to provide proof of concept for the application of Sequential Window Acquisition of All Theoretical Mass Spectra-Mass spectrometry (SWATH-MS) and machine learning to develop a non-invasive and accurate predictive model using the stool proteome to distinguish between active IBD patients and symptomatic non-IBD patients.