Plasma Lipidomic Analysis to Identify Novel Biomarkers for Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Abstract

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) accounts for the major primary liver cancer, and its morbidity and mortality rates are very high. Identification of novel biomarkers for the early diagnosis and treatment of this disease is of crucial importance. In this study, a continuous-flow normal-phase/reversed-phase two-dimensional liquid chromatography-quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (NP/RP 2D LC-QToF/MS) method was used to detect lipid species in human plasma from HCC patients and healthy controls. As a result, the two groups were clearly separated by principal component analysis. Besides, 23 lipid species with corrected p value \0.05 and fold change [1.5 were proposed as potential lipid biomarkers for HCC. Among them, 9 lipid species, including galactosylceramide (36:5), free fatty acid (20:4), phosphatidylethanolamine (40:6), phosphatidylethanolamine (38:6), diacylglycerol (40:5), diacylglycerol (44:2), lactosylceramide (40:3), phosphatidylcholine (40:6), and free fatty acid (22:5), exhibited excellent ability to distinguish HCC patients from healthy controls with the area under the receiver-operating characteristic curve [0.900, showing promising clinical value. Taken together, these results indicate the great potential of NP/RP 2D LC-QToF/MS method in disease diagnosis, which might be helpful in clinical practice.

Lipidomic-Based Advances in Diagnosis and Modulation of Immune Response to Cancer

“…LXRs/SREBP1 upregulation in tumor or inflammatory cells leads to an increase of saturated and monounsaturated fatty acids via the activation of FAS and SCD-1, which are incorporated into glycerolipids by acyltransferases. Consequently, the upregulation of glycerolipids with saturated and monounsaturated fatty acids acts as a biomarker for the tumor synthesis of membranes and the activation of macrophages [ 90 , 91 ]. In addition, LXRs/SREBP1 upregulate glycerol-3-phosphate acyltransferase 1 (GPAT-1), which has a strong preference for transferring palmitic acid to the sn -1 position of glycerol-3-phosphate.…”