Genetics

Metabolism in MS is measured at scales that never meet. Guo and colleagues follow 2,117 Swedish patients and find obesity at diagnosis predicts faster disability only in people lacking HLA-A*02:01. Siavoshi and colleagues run untargeted metabolomics on 541 samples from 323 patients, where gut-derived aromatic amino acid metabolites track worse disability and acylcarnitines track worse cognition. Sertbas and Ulgen build genome-scale metabolic models of five brain cell types from single-cell data and find L-carnitine and arachidonate as top reporter metabolites in MS microglia. Carnitine appears twice, measured once and inferred once, in different people.