Colorectal Cancer Detection Using Targeted LC-MS Metabolic Profiling

Area of Science:

• Oncology
• Biochemistry
• Analytical Chemistry

Background:

• Colorectal cancer (CRC) remains a leading cause of cancer death globally, with significant numbers succumbing annually.
• Current diagnostic methods often fail to detect early-stage CRC, leading to delayed treatment and poorer prognoses.
• There is a critical need for sensitive, specific, noninvasive, and accessible screening methods for early CRC diagnosis.

Purpose of the Study:

• To discover novel metabolite biomarker candidates for colorectal cancer (CRC).
• To develop a targeted liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) based metabolic profiling approach for CRC detection.
• To evaluate the efficacy of the developed method in differentiating CRC patients from healthy and polyp patients and in staging CRC.

Main Methods:

• Utilized hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography coupled to triple-quadrupole mass spectrometry (HILIC-LC-QQQ-MS) for metabolic profiling.
• Employed targeted LC-MS based analysis for the discovery of CRC metabolite biomarker candidates.
• Applied partial least squares-discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) for statistical modeling and classification.

Main Results:

• The HILIC-LC-QQQ-MS approach demonstrated high reproducibility.
• A PLS-DA model successfully differentiated CRC patients from healthy controls and polyp patients.
• The model also showed capability in distinguishing CRC patients based on cancer stage.

Conclusions:

• Targeted LC-MS based metabolic profiling is a promising approach for discovering CRC metabolite biomarkers.
• This method holds potential for the early diagnosis and staging of colorectal cancer.
• Further development could lead to improved, noninvasive screening tools for CRC, reducing mortality rates.