ToF-SIMS imaging reveals changes in tumor cell lipids during metastatic progression of melanoma

Most melanomas progress from radial to vertical growth phase before spreading locoregionally and distally. Much is still unknown about the metabolic changes in the tumor cells and their microenvironment during this metastatic progression. We aimed to gain new insight into the molecular characteristics of melanoma in regard to spatial lipidomics to deliver new knowledge regarding tumor metastatic progression. We included 10 fresh tumor samples from 10 patients including two in situ melanomas, two invasive primary melanomas, and six metastatic melanomas (four in-transit metastases and two distant metastases). In addition, we analyzed four healthy skin controls from the same patients. Time-of-flight imaging secondary ion mass spectrometry (ToF-SIMS) enabled detailed spatial-lipidomics that could be directly correlated with conventional histopathological analysis of consecutive H&E-stained tissue sections. Significant differences in the lipid profiles were found in primary compared to metastatic melanomas, notably an increase in phosphatidylethanolamine lipids relative to phosphatidylinositol lipids and an increase in GM3 gangliosides in the metastatic samples. Furthermore, analysis of the data from in transit versus distant metastases samples highlighted that specific phospholipids, and a difference in the long versus shorter chain GM3 gangliosides, discriminated the metastatic routes. Further studies are warranted to verify these preliminary findings. Lipidomic changes could serve as a novel biomarker for tumor progression and even serve as a target for novel treatments. Furthermore, analyzing the lipid profiles could help to differentiate between primary and metastatic melanomas in challenging cases.