Metabolic Alterations in Meningioma Reflect Clinical Course

Abstract

BackgroundMeningiomas are common brain tumors, defined by an innocent clinical course. However, some meningiomas reveal a malignant transformation and recur within a short time period regardless of their WHO grade. The current study aims to identify potential markers, which can discriminate between benign and malignant meningioma courses. MethodsFor this purpose, we profiled the metabolites of 43 patients with low- and high-grade meningiomas. Tumor specimens were analyzed by NMR analysis; 270 metabolites were identified and clustered with the AutoPipe algorithm. ResultsWe observed two distinct clusters marked by alterations in the glycine-serine, choline or tryptophan metabolism. Both clusters showed significant differences between WHO graduation and proliferation index.ConclusionOur findings suggest that alterations of glycine-serine are associated with a lower proliferation and frequencies of recurrent tumors. Alterations of the choline-tryptophan metabolism causes increased proliferation and recurrence is more common. Our results suggest, that tumor malignancy is reflected by metabolic alterations, which can support histological classifications in order to predict the clinical outcome of patients with meningiomas.