Metabolomic profiling of ovarian carcinomas using mass spectrometry

Most of the research on tumor cell metabolism has focused on glucose utilization. However, when glucose is limited, solid tumors are forced to catabolize alternative substrates such as fatty acids and amino acids as an energy source. Measuring these alternations in tumor cell metabolism enables us to track neoplastic changes in the tissue to lead towards a more reliable diagnostic outcome. Although a very small number of elements are used in biochemistry, the metabolome is structurally diverse for the production of simple compounds such as phosphate and amino acids as well as more structurally complex compounds such as nucleotides, oligosaccharides, and complex lipids. Characterization of the metabolome, therefore, requires analytical methods that can handle a wide range of molecular structures and physicochemical properties, including solubility, polarity, and molecular weight. A further factor for consideration in the selection of technology for metabolomics is the wide range of concentrations of biochemical typically present in biological systems. MS has established itself as the high-throughput, information-rich, industrially stable approach to assess both the composition of diverse sample types as well as changes to that composition following perturbation.