Discrimination between malignant and benign ovarian tumors by plasma metabolomic profiling using ultra performance liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry.
BACKGROUND
Discrimination between epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) and benign ovarian tumor (BOT) has always been difficult in clinical practice. We investigated the application of metabolomics in distinguishing EOC and BOT and tried to discover valuable biomarkers.


METHODS
Plasma metabolomic profiling was performed using ultra-performance liquid chromatography mass spectrometry (UPLC/MS). Partial least-squares discriminant analysis was employed to classify EOC and BOT, and reveal their metabolic differences. The area under the receiver-operating characteristic curve (AUC) was utilized to evaluate the predictive performance of the metabolic profiles for external validation set.


RESULTS
The metabolomic profiles consisting of 535 metabolites revealed a clear separation between EOC and BOT, with AUC of 0.86 for the external validation set. 6 metabolic biomarkers were identified, and the plasma concentrations of the 4 ascertained biomarkers (L-tryptophan, LysoPC(18:3), LysoPC(14:0), and 2-Piperidinone) were lower in EOC patients than those in BOT patients. Among them, tryptophan and LysoPC have been suspected to participate in cancer progression, and 2-Piperidinone might be a novel biomarker for EOC.


CONCLUSIONS
Metabolomics could be used to discriminate EOC from BOT in clinical practice, and the identified metabolic biomarkers might be important on investigating the biological mechanisms of EOC.
Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Public Health School, Harbin Medical University, Harbin, China.
Tao
T
Zhang
Xiaoyan
X
Wu
Mingzhu
M
Yin
Lijun
L
Fan
Haiyu
H
Zhang
Falin
F
Zhao
Wang
W
Zhang
Chaofu
C
Ke
Guangming
G
Zhang
Yan
Y
Hou
Xiaohua
X
Zhou
Ge
G
Lou
Kang
K
Li
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor / Q000097:blood*; D002851:Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid / Q000379:methods; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D013058:Mass Spectrometry / Q000379:methods*; D055442:Metabolome; D008875:Middle Aged; D010051:Ovarian Neoplasms / Q000097:blood* / Q000175:diagnosis*; D055815:Young Adult
D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor