Metabolomic profiling of oral squamous cell carcinoma reveals glutaminolysis-related proteins: GLS1 and GLUD1 are potential diagnostic and prognostic factors

Abstract

It is essential to explore potential molecular involved in oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) malignant transformation and progression. The purpose of this study was to delineate the metabolic characteristics of OSCC patients. We firstly report GC-MS based metabolic profiling of OSCC tissues from 8 patients, including tumor tissues and its matched normal tissues, then another 81 OSCC patients with prognostic information were used to verify metabolomics results by exam key enzymes expression. A panel including ten metabolite biomarker were identified, which can distinguish OSCC tumor from normal controls. On the base of metabolites with significantly difference, we applied KEGG for further pathway analysis and found OSCC have highly active glutaminolysis metabolism. Therefore, glutaminolysis-related key enzymes GLS1 and GLUD1 were detected by immunohistochemical and results demonstrated that GLS1 and GLUD1 were highly expressed in OSCC. Moreover, Kaplan-Meier survival analysis also showed and GLS1 and GLUD1 expressions were correlated with poor prognosis and tumor progression in OSCC patients. In conclusion, our results indicated that OSCC have highly active glutaminolysis metabolism, and GLS1 and GLUD1 enzymes are potential diagnostic and prognostic factors for OSCC.