Mannose Promotes Metabolic Discrimination of Osteosarcoma Cells at Single-Cell Level by Mass Spectrometry

Discrimination of cancer cells at the single-cell metabolic level is crucial for early diagnosis. However, some cancer cells share similar metabolic information with normal cells, making them difficult to be distinguished using mass spectrometry. Herein, we propose a method by treating osteosarcoma cells and normal human osteoblasts with mannose as a stimulant, which greatly promotes the metabolic discrimination of osteosarcoma cells at the single-cell level. The low PMI (mannose 6-phosphate isomerase) level of both osteosarcoma cell lines compared to normal human osteoblasts is the reason for the abnormal metabolic pathway of two osteosarcoma cell lines with mannose treatment. We also found that the level of hexoses-6P in osteosarcoma cells significantly increased after mannose treatment, while no such increase was found in normal human osteoblasts. The proposed method is very meaningful for early diagnosis of cancer.