Elemental fingerprinting of tumorous and adjacent non-tumorous tissues from patients with colorectal cancer using ICP-MS, ICP-OES and chemometric analysis

Abstract

Tumorous and adjacent non-tumorous paired biopsies from 38 patients with colorectal cancer were analyzed by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry and inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry after low-volume microwave digestion. 18 elements were investigated: Ag, Al, Ca, Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Fe, K, Mg, Mn, Mo, Ni, P, Pb, S, Se and Zn. Different chemometric tools were used for data evaluation: Wilcoxon signed rank test, Hieratical clustering analysis, principal component analysis (PCA) and linear discriminant analysis (LDA). With the exception of Al, tumours were observed to have significantly more elevated concentrations of essential elements as compared to non-tumours. On the contrary, elements considered potentially carcinogenic such as Cr, Ni, Mo or Co do not display significant differences. When PCA was applied, different components were obtained for tumorous and non-tumorous tissues. When LDA was applied for the elements studied (including essential and non-essential elements) about 90% of cases were correctly classified.

Effect of Chemotherapy on Zn, Fe, Mg, Pb, Ca and Se in the Serum

“…The use of oxidizing acids in digestion may cause the conversion of Se(IV) to Se (VI). Therefore one must use high concentrations of HCl (4-7 mol/L) to avoid the back oxidation from Se(IV) to Se (VI) [24][25][26][27][28][29], since the only compound formed from Se(IV) is selenium hydride. In contrast, HCl concentration has to be higher than 2 mol/L for formation of Se(IV) Aydın observed good results from colorless clear serum solution for trace quantities of Se and the other elements.…”

Metals distribution in colorectal biopsies: New insight on the elemental fingerprint of tumour tissue

“…Median Mg, Zn and Cr concentration were respectively 1090 g/g; 86.5 g/g and 343 ng/g. Lavilla et al [5] assayed 18 elements in biopsies from 38 patients with colorectal cancer, revealing that the tumour tissue may accumulate trace of minor elements, especially Mg (573 g/g in tumour tissues vs. 296 g/g in healthy controls). In Lavilla et al study, there was no significative difference for Zn (90 g/g in tumour tissue vs. 79 g/g in healthy tissue).…”

“…Occupational studies have tentatively linked colorectal cancer to asbestos [2,3] and to metal dust [4]. Hence, a new field is receiving increasing attention, namely the study of environmental risk factors associated with the presence of chemical elements [5,6], such as exogenous micro-and nanoparticles [7]. Some elements are essential for numerous metabolic and physiological processes in the body, as well as the synthesis and structural stabilization of enzymes, proteins, and nucleic acids.…”

Changes of erythrocyte element status of colectomysed cancerous patients: Retrospective study

“…Only scarce data could be found about Al contents in studies about colorectal tumors, but Lavilla et al (2009) has found elevated Al and essential element content in cancerous tissues while compared the healthy to the cancerous tissues in 38 colorectal cancerous patients. This study can confirm the elevated Al-content in our study.…”