Saturated fatty acids as possible important metabolites for epithelial ovarian cancer based on the free and esterified fatty acid profiles determined by GC-MS analysis

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Yin, Rui^{a; 1} | Yang, Tongshu^{b; 1} | Su, Hui^c | Ying, Li^d | Liu, Liyan^{d; *} | Sun, Changhao^{d; *}

Affiliations: [a] Department of Analytical Chemistry, College of Pharmacy, Heilongjiang University of Chinese Medicine, Harbin, Heilongjiang, China | [b] The Affiliated Tumor Hospital of Harbin Medical University, Harbin Medical University, Harbin, Heilongjiang, China | [c] Department of Pharmaceutical Engineering, College of Pharmacy, Heilongjiang University of Chinese Medicine, Harbin, Heilongjiang, China | [d] Department of Nutrition and Food Hygiene, Public Health College, Harbin Medical University, Harbin, Heilongjiang, China

Correspondence: [*] Corresponding authors: Liyan Liu and Changhao Sun, Department of Nutrition and Food Hygiene, Public Health College, Harbin Medical University, 157 Baojian Road, Nangang District, Harbin 150086, Heilongjiang, China. Tel.: +86 0451 87502725; Fax: +86 0451 87502885; E-mail:[email protected];[email protected]

Note: [1] These authors contributed equally to this work.

Abstract: AIMS: The aims were to investigate the serum free fatty acid (FFA) and esterified fatty acid (EFA) profiles and to identify biomarkers that can be used to identify patients with epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) based on the metabolomics approach. METHODS: We applied a targeted gas chromatography-mass spectrometry metabolomics approach to serum samples from 40 EOC patients and 35 healthy controls for achieving the FFA and EFA profiles. These metabolite profiles were processed using multivariate analysis to obtain potential biomarkers. And then, some independent samples were chosen to validate these potential biomarkers. RESULTS: There were higher saturated fatty acids and lower unsaturated fatty acids in EOC patients when compared with the healthy controls. EFA (C16:0), EFA (C18:0) and FFA (C16:0) were identified as potential biomarkers that distinguished EOC from the healthy controls. The areas under the curve from the EFA (C16:0), EFA (C18:0) and FFA (C16:0) in validated study were 0.745, 0.701, 0.682, respectively. CONCLUSION: Our study provides useful information to bridge the gaps in our understanding to the fatty acids metabolic alterations associated with EOC, and this study has demonstrated saturated fatty acid biomarkers might be helpful for the detection and characterization of EOC patients.

Keywords: Free and esterified fatty acids, epithelial ovarian cancer, Metabolomics, Biomarker, Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry

DOI: 10.3233/CBM-160638

Journal: Cancer Biomarkers, vol. 17, no. 3, pp. 259-269, 2016