Increased Expression of Phosphatidylcholine (16:0/18:1) and (16:0/18:2) in Thyroid Papillary Cancer

Abstract

A good prognosis can be expected for most, but not all, cases of thyroid papillary cancer. Numerous molecular studies have demonstrated beneficial treatment and prognostic factors in various molecular markers. Whereas most previous reports have focused on genomics and proteomics, few have focused on lipidomics. With the advent of mass spectrometry (MS), it has become possible to identify many types of molecules, and this analytical tool has become critical in the field of omics. Recently, imaging mass spectrometry (IMS) was developed. After a simple pretreatment process, IMS can be used to examine tissue sections on glass slides with location information.Here, we conducted an IMS analysis of seven cases of thyroid papillary cancer by comparison of cancerous with normal tissues, focusing on the distribution of phospholipids. We identified that phosphatidylcholine (16:0/18:1) and (16:0/18:2) and sphingomyelin (d18:0/16:1) are significantly higher in thyroid papillary cancer than in normal thyroid tissue as determined by tandem mass (MS/MS) analysis. These distributional differences may be associated with the biological behavior of thyroid papillary cancer.

Odróżnienie brodawkowatego raka tarczycy od tkanki nienowotworowej w oparciu o profilowanie lipidów metodą MALDI-MSI

“…Phospholipids, which are the major constituents of cell membranes, play an important role in signal transduction, inflammation, cell proliferation and differentiation [8][9][10], and influence key aspects of cancer phenotype [11,12]. A few papers have reported differences in the lipid profiles of thyroid neoplasms [13][14][15][16], hence this class of compounds could be potentially implemented in classification of thyroid lesions. Mass spectrometry imaging (MSI) is a newly developed technique allowing for determination of spatial distribution of metabolites and lipids within the tissue sections [17][18][19][20].…”

Significantly increased monounsaturated lipids relative to polyunsaturated lipids in six types of cancer microenvironment are observed by mass spectrometry imaging

“…On the basis of previous data about breast, lung, and thyroid cancer, a significant up-regulation of MUPCs was observed in the cancer microenvironment. These findings indicate that cancer progression is associated with de novo lipogenesis101112. However, no investigation of in situ fatty acids reveals the role of de novo lipogenesis in cancer microenvironment.…”

Proteome analysis in thyroid pathology

“…Two years after this study, Min et al [86] described their feasibility test of MALDI-MSI on five fresh frozen tumor samples of patients with PTC, identifying the ribosomal protein P2 as specific for cancer through the application of LC-MS/MS. MSI was also used to investigate lipid composition in thyroid specimens [87], showing that phosphatidylcholine and sphingomyelin are significantly higher in PTC than in normal thyroid tissue. Although these studies enabled important progress in the study of thyroid tumors, until now, a single protein or a cluster of markers useful to discriminate between undetermined entities has not already been identified (TABLE 3).…”