Urinary metabolite and lipid alterations in Colombian Hispanic women with breast cancer: A pilot study

Metabolic biomarkers for breast cancer (BC) prognosis and diagnosis are required, given the increment of BC incidence rates in developing countries and its prevalence in women worldwide. Human urine represents a useful resource of metabolites for biomarker discovery, because it could reflect metabolic alterations caused by a particular pathological state. Furthermore, urine analysis is readily available, it is non-invasive and allows in-time monitoring. Therefore, in present study, a metabolic- and lipid fingerprinting of urine was performed using an analytical multiplatform approach. The study was conducted in order to identify alterated metabolites which can be helpful in the understanding of metabolic alterations driven by BC as well as their potential usage as biomarkers. Urine samples collected from healthy controls and BC subjects were analyzed using LC-MS and GC-MS. Subsequently, significantly altered metabolites were determined by employing univariate and multivariate statistical analyses. An overall decrease of intermediates of the tricarboxylic acid cycle and metabolites belonging to amino acids and nucleotides were observed, along with an increment of lipid-related compounds. Receiver operating characteristic analysis evaluated the combination of dimethylheptanoylcarnitine and succinic acid as potential urinary markers, achieving a sensitivity of 93% and a specificity of 86%. The present analytical multiplatform approach enabled a wide coverage of urine metabolites that revealed significant alterations in BC samples, demonstrating its usefulness for biomarker discovery in selected populations.