Metabolic profiling of serum in patients with cartilage tumours using ¹H‐NMR spectroscopy: A pilot study

Abstract

Cartilage‐forming lesions include tumours that can vary in severity from benign enchondromas to high‐grade malignant chondrosarcomas. Chondrosarcoma is the second most frequent malignant bone tumour, accounting for 20–30% of all malignant bone neoplasms. Surgery is the standard treatment for cartilage tumours (CTs); however, their incidental diagnosis and the difficult differentiation of low‐grade lesions like chondrosarcoma grade I from benign entities like enchondroma are challenges for clinical management. In this sense, the search for circulating biomarkers for early detection and prognosis is an ongoing interest. Targeted metabolomics is a powerful tool that can propose potential biomarkers in biological fluids as well as help to discover disturbed metabolic pathways to reveal tumour pathogenesis. In this context, the aim of this study was to investigate the 1H nuclear magnetic resonance metabolomic serum profile of patients with CTs contrasted with healthy controls. Forty‐one metabolites were identified and quantified; the multivariate statistical methods principal component analysis and partial least squares discriminant analysis reveal a clear separation of the CT group, that is, the differential metabolites that were involved in two main metabolic pathways: the taurine and hypotaurine metabolism and synthesis and degradation of ketone bodies. Our results represent preliminary work for emergent serum‐based diagnostics or prognostic methods for patients with chondrogenic tumours.

Soft Tissue Sarcoma: An Insight on Biomarkers at Molecular, Metabolic and Cellular Level

“…The serum profile showed an increased concentration of cystine and 2-hydroxybutyrate and decreased levels of malate and dodecanoic acid for osteosarcoma as well as for the benign tumors, but significance for the latter was low because just one sample of each was used. The metabolic profile of cartilage tumors (CTs) was improved in an NMR study of serum from patients affected by enchondromas and chondrosarcomas (three each) [ 172 ], showing a strong association with the dysregulation of taurine and hypotaurine metabolism as well as the synthesis and degradation of ketone bodies.…”

Targeted 1H NMR metabolomics and immunological phenotyping of human fresh blood and serum samples discriminate between healthy individuals and inflammatory bowel disease patients treated with anti-TNF

“…The identification of disease markers in a biofluid not only offers practical clinical information concerning the risk, diagnosis, and/or prognosis of the disease [ 11 , 12 ] but also detects altered metabolic pathways that could lead to a better understanding of the disease and/or to select a plausible target for a therapy. Some successful examples in which NMR metabolomics has proven useful in the detection of disease biomarkers include cancer [ 12 , 13 ] including colorectal cancer, [ 14 ], IBD [ 15 – 17 ], CD [ 18 , 19 ], and UC [ 19 ] just to refer to some recent studies. Moreover, it can replace invasive diagnostics such as colonoscopy [ 20 ].…”

Integration of Serum Metabolomics into Clinical Assessment to Improve Outcome Prediction of Metastatic Soft Tissue Sarcoma Patients Treated with Trabectedin

“…These features make metabolomics an important tool to assess the patients’ phenotypes and it has already been widely used to identify diagnostic cancer signatures and prognostic biomarkers [ 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 ]. However, only a few metabolomics studies have been reported for sarcoma and they mainly regard in vitro investigations [ 26 , 27 ]; those performed in a clinical setting were focused on specific sarcoma subgroups [ 28 , 29 , 30 ] and limited only to gemcitabine treatment [ 31 ]. In this prospective study, we used a metabolomics approach to search for new serum prognostic markers for overall survival in patients with metastatic STS treated with trabectedin.…”