Harnessing the Power of Metabolomics for Precision Oncology: Current Advances and Future Directions

Metabolic reprogramming is a hallmark of cancer, with cancer cells acquiring many unique metabolic traits to support malignant growth, and extensive intra- and inter-tumour metabolic heterogeneity. Understanding these metabolic characteristics presents opportunities in precision medicine for both diagnosis and therapy. However, despite its potential, metabolic phenotyping has lagged behind genetic, transcriptomic, and immunohistochemical profiling in clinical applications. This is partly due to the lack of a single experimental technique capable of profiling the entire metabolome, necessitating the use of multiple technologies and approaches to capture the full range of cancer metabolic plasticity. This review examines the repertoire of tools available for profiling cancer metabolism, demonstrating their applications in preclinical and clinical settings. It also presents case studies illustrating how metabolomic profiling has been integrated with other omics technologies to gain insights into tumour biology and guide treatment strategies. This information aims to assist researchers in selecting the most effective tools for their studies and highlights the importance of combining different metabolic profiling techniques to comprehensively understand tumour metabolism.