A UPLC Q-Exactive Orbitrap Mass Spectrometry-Based Metabolomic Study of Serum and Tumor Tissue in Patients with Papillary Thyroid Cancer

Abstract

Objective: To find the metabolomic characteristics of tumor or para-tumor tissues, and the differences in serums from papillary thyroid cancer (PTC) patients with or without lymph node metastasis. Methods: We collected serums of PTC patients with/without lymph node metastasis (SN1/SN0), tumor and adjacent tumor tissues of PTC patients with lymph node metastasis (TN1 and PN1), and without lymph node metastasis (TN0 and PN0). Metabolite detection was performed by ultra-high performance liquid chromatography combined with Q-Exactive orbitrap mass spectrometry (UPLC Q-Exactive). Results: There were 31, 15, 4 differential metabolites in the comparisons of TN1 and PN1, TN0 and PN0, SN1 and SN0, respectively. Seven uniquely increased metabolites and fourteen uniquely decreased metabolites appeared in the lymph node metastasis (TN1 and PN1) group. Meanwhile, the results indicated that four pathways were co-owned pathways in two comparisons (TN1 and PN1, TN0 and PN0), and four unique pathways presented in the lymph node metastasis (TN1 and PN1) group. Conclusions: Common or differential metabolites and metabolic pathways were detected in the lymph node metastasis and non-metastatic group, which might provide novel ways for the diagnosis and treatment of PTC.

Metabolic Patterns of High-Invasive and Low-Invasive Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma Cells Using Quantitative Metabolomics and 13C-Glucose Tracing

“…The invasiveness of cancer cells can be affected by the different origins, tissue types and genotypes of tumors. It is reflected not only in the different cell types (tumoral heterogeneity), the nature of the tumor-stroma interactions at the front of invasion and the role of growth factors and other substances that affect the invading cells [13][14][15] but also in the heterogeneity of cellular metabolism [12,16]. Tumoral heterogeneity and its associated alterations in metabolism are key factors for the resistance to treatment and metastasis formation [12,15], wherein intra-tumoral heterogeneity within cancer cells has been often employed to explore the metastatic mechanisms [17,18].…”