Metabolomics studies in gastrointestinal cancer: a systematic review

ABSTRACT

Introduction

This systemic review provides an overview of metabolic perturbations and possible mechanisms in gastrointestinal cancer. The authors discuss emerging challenges of technical and clinical applications.

Areas covered

In this systemic review, the authors summarized the currently available results of metabolomic biomarkers linked to GI cancer, and discussed the altered metabolism pathways including carbohydrate metabolism, amino acid metabolism, lipids, and nucleotide metabolism and other metabolisms. Furthermore, future efforts need to adhere to normalize analysis procedures, validate with the larger cohort and utilize multiple-omics technologies. The search was conducted in PubMed with the following search terms (biomarker, gastrointestinal cancer, colorectal cancer, and esophageal cancer) from 2013 to 2019.

Expert opinion

This systemic review summarized the currently available results of metabolomic biomarkers linked to gastrointestinal cancer, and discussed the altered metabolism pathways. The authors believe that metabolomics will benefit deeper understandings of the pathogenic mechanism, discovery of biomarkers and aid the search for drug targets as we move toward the era of personalized medicine. Personalized medication for tumors can improve the curative effect, avoid side effects and medical resource waste. As a promisingtool, metabolomics that targets the entire cancer-specific metabolite network should be applied more widely in cancer research.

KEYWORDS:

• Metabolomics
• biomarker
• altered metabolism pathway
• gastrointestinal cancer
• esophageal cancer
• gastric cancer
• colorectal cancer

Article highlights

• In this systemic review, the authors summarized the currently available results of metabolomic biomarkers linked to gastrointestinal cancer.

• The possible mechanism behind these metabolic perturbations, the technical and clinical limitations, and emerging challenges were also discussed.

• The authors found that there were some inconsistencies in the relative abundance of metabolites between different research groups.

• To enhance the power and specificity of the biomarkers, the further validation, the larger cohort, the standardized sample preparation, and data analysis are the important areas that need to be improved.

Declaration of interest

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.

Reviewer Disclosures

Peer reviewers on this manuscript have no relevant financial or other relationships to disclose.

Additional information

Funding

This paper was funded by the Postdoctoral Science Foundation of Heilongjiang Province, grant number: No.LBH-Q17090; and The youth science foundation of Liande Wu in Harbin Medical University: NO.WLD-QN1704.