Faculty, Staff and Student Publications
Publication Date
8-20-2024
Journal
Metabolites
Abstract
Currently, the clinical cure rate for primary liver cancer remains low. Effective screening and early diagnosis of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) remain clinical challenges. Exosomes are intimately associated with tumor development and their contents have the potential to serve as highly sensitive tumor-specific markers. A comprehensive untargeted metabolomics study was conducted using exosome samples extracted from the serum of 48 subjects (36 HCC patients and 12 healthy controls) via a commercial kit. An ultra-performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS) strategy was used to identify the metabolic compounds. A total of 18 differential metabolites were identified using the non-targeted metabolomics approach of UPLC-QTOF-MS/MS. Pathway analysis revealed significant alterations in the arachidonic acid metabolism, linoleic acid metabolism, and unsaturated fatty acid metabolism pathways. ROC analysis indicated that three metabolites with AUC values exceeding 0.900 were selected as potential biomarkers: caprylic acid and linoleic acid were upregulated in the HCC group, whereas pentadecanoic acid was downregulated. Linoleic acid, caprylic acid, and pentadecanoic acid are potential biomarkers for diagnosing HCC. The significant alterations in these three metabolic pathways offer new insights into the mechanisms underlying HCC formation and progression.
Keywords
hepatocellular carcinoma, serum exosomes, non-targeted metabolomics, biomarkers
DOI
10.3390/metabo14080462
PMID
39195558
PMCID
PMC11356119
PubMedCentral® Posted Date
8-20-2024
PubMedCentral® Full Text Version
Post-print
Published Open-Access
yes
Included in
Biochemical Phenomena, Metabolism, and Nutrition Commons, Bioinformatics Commons, Biomedical Informatics Commons, Data Science Commons, Oncology Commons
