LC-MS/MS-Based Serum Lipidomic Profile to Reveal Cancer-Specific Biomarkers for Renal Cell Carcinoma

Renal cell carcinoma (RCC) is one of the most lethal malignant tumors in the urinary system, and its incidence rate is increasing in the last decade. Discovering sensitive and specific biomarkers for RCC and exploring its pathogenesis are of great clinical significance. Here, a liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) based serum lipidomic profile was carried out to reveal the lipid expression differences in RCC patients and healthy controls. A total of 112 participants were enrolled in the training set, including nonmalignant disease subjects for specific screening. As a result, 66 RCC-specific lipid variables were screened and further validated with an independent test set. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis was used to evaluate the clinical diagnostic potential of the biomarkers. Twenty-four of them were found to have AUC (area under the curve) values larger than 0.85, and 13 of them were clearly identified. The study indicated reduced lysophosphatidylcholine (LPC) serum levels and increased triglyceride (TG) levels in RCC patients, which might be developed as a potential therapeutic target for cancer treatment. A biomarker pattern composed of TG (19:1/18:2/18:2) and TG (18:0/16:0/16:0) was discovered to have the highest AUC value of 0.995, with a sensitivity and specificity up to 97.6% and 95.0%, respectively.