Urine metabolite analysis offers potential early diagnosis of ovarian and breast cancers.
OBJECTIVE
Metabolomics is a new, rapidly expanding field dedicated to the global study of metabolites in biological systems. In this article metabolomics is applied to find urinary biomarkers for breast and ovarian cancer.


METHODS
Urine samples were collected from early- and late-stage breast and ovarian cancer patients during presurgical examinations and randomly from females with no known cancer. After quantitatively measuring a set of metabolites using nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, both univariate and multivariate statistical analyses were employed to determine significant differences.


RESULTS
Metabolic phenotypes of breast and ovarian cancers in comparison with normal urine and with each other revealed significance at Bonferroni-corrected significance levels resulting in unique metabolite patterns for breast and ovarian cancer. Intermediates of the tricarboxylic acid cycle and metabolites relating to energy metabolism, amino acids, and gut microbial metabolism were perturbed.


CONCLUSIONS
The results presented here illustrate that urinary metabolomics may be useful for detecting early-stage breast and ovarian cancer.
Department of Medicine, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. cslupsky@ucdavis.edu
Carolyn M
CM
Slupsky
Helen
H
Steed
Tiffany H
TH
Wells
Kelly
K
Dabbs
Alexandra
A
Schepansky
Valerie
V
Capstick
Wylam
W
Faught
Michael B
MB
Sawyer
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor / Q000378:metabolism / Q000652:urine; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000378:metabolism / Q000473:pathology / Q000652:urine; D002277:Carcinoma / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000378:metabolism / Q000652:urine; D055088:Early Detection of Cancer / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D055442:Metabolome; D008875:Middle Aged; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D010051:Ovarian Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000378:metabolism / Q000473:pathology / Q000652:urine; D016482:Urinalysis / Q000379:methods*; D014556:Urine / Q000737:chemistry; D055815:Young Adult
D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor