Metabolomic Profiling in Colorectal Cancer: Opportunities for Personalized Medicine

Abstract

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the most common types of cancer in the world, with high prevalence and mortality. Understanding the alterations of cancer metabolism and identifying reliable biomarkers would facilitate the development of novel technologies of CRC screening and early diagnosis, as well as new approaches to providing personalized medicine. Metabolomics, as an emerging molecular phenotyping approach, provides a clinical platform technology with an unprecedented amount of metabolic readout information, which is ideal for theranostic biomarker discovery. Metabolic signatures can link the unique pathophysiological states of patients to personalized health monitoring and intervention strategies. This article presents an overview of the metabolomic studies of CRC with a focus on recent advances in the biomarker discovery in serum, urine, fecal water and tissue samples for cancer diagnosis. The development and application of metabolomics towards personalized medicine, including early diagnosis, cancer staging, treatment and drug discovery are also discussed.

KEYWORDS::

• biomarkers
• colorectal cancer
• drug discovery
• early diagnosis
• metabolomic profiling
• personalized medicine
• staging
• treatment

Financial & competing interests disclosure

The authors are thankful for the support of the Metabolic Disease Biobank, Shanghai Jiao Tong University Affiliated Sixth People‘s Hospital. This work was funded in part by E-institutes of Shanghai Municipal Education Commission (E03008), the Program for Professor of Special Appointment (Eastern Scholar) at Shanghai Institutions of Higher Learning (No. 2011-50), 085ZY1205 and Shanghai Science and Technology funds (12DZ2295004). The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.

Additional information

Funding

The authors are thankful for the support of the Metabolic Disease Biobank, Shanghai Jiao Tong University Affiliated Sixth People‘s Hospital. This work was funded in part by E-institutes of Shanghai Municipal Education Commission (E03008), the Program for Professor of Special Appointment (Eastern Scholar) at Shanghai Institutions of Higher Learning (No. 2011-50), 085ZY1205 and Shanghai Science and Technology funds (12DZ2295004). The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.