A METABONOMICS STUDY OF COLORECTAL CANCER BY RRLC-QTOF/MS

Abstract

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is a major cause of worldwide mortality and morbidity. To find effective metabolic biomarkers is valuable for early CRC detection, which plays a key role in patient survival rate. Urinary metabolic differences between CRC patients and healthy controls were investigated using rapid resolution liquid chromatography/quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (RRLC-QTOF/MS). Urine samples were studied in positive mode by ESI-MS and then the resulting data matrices were analyzed by multivariate statistical analysis. Urine samples of CRC patients were successfully distinguished from those of healthy controls. A total of ten significantly changed metabolites have been found and identified as potential biomarkers. This MS based method could not only provide a deep insight into mechanisms and identify novel cancer biomarkers, but also can lead to substantial decrease of analysis time and the increase of sensitivity and specificity. Our results suggest that CRC urinary metabolites might reflect specific tumor metabolisms and could be used as potential urinary metabolic biomarkers to reflect pathological changes of CRC.

Keywords:

• biomarker
• colorectal cancer
• mass spectrometry
• multivariate statistical analysis
• RRLC
• urinary metabonomics