Epigenomic and Metabolomic Integration Reveals Dynamic Metabolic Regulation in Bladder Cancer

Simple Summary Current diagnostic and follow-up methods for the clinical management of bladder cancer (BC) have limitations, and there is an urgent unmet need for non-invasive biomarkers for this highly prevalent disease. Furthermore, personalized treatments for patients could improve their quality of life and overall survival. The aim of this article is to review the literature in this area, with a primary focus on metabolic and epigenetic biomarkers of BC, as well as the targeted therapies discovered to date. We show the dynamic biological interplay established between epigenomics and metabolomics in the context of BC. These findings may be useful both for researchers and physicians in the field of BC, and could facilitate clinical decision-making regarding patients at diagnosis, prognosis, monitoring, or treatment. Bladder cancer (BC) represents a clinical, social, and economic challenge due to tumor-intrinsic characteristics, limitations of diagnostic techniques and a lack of personalized treatments. In the last decade, the use of liquid biopsy has grown as a non-invasive approach to characterize tumors. Moreover, the emergence of omics has increased our knowledge of cancer biology and identified critical BC biomarkers. The rewiring between epigenetics and metabolism has been closely linked to tumor phenotype. Chromatin remodelers interact with each other to control gene silencing in BC, but also with stress-inducible factors or oncogenic signaling cascades to regulate metabolic reprogramming towards glycolysis, the pentose phosphate pathway, and lipogenesis. Concurrently, one-carbon metabolism supplies methyl groups to histone and DNA methyltransferases, leading to the hypermethylation and silencing of suppressor genes in BC. Conversely, alpha-KG and acetyl-CoA enhance the activity of histone demethylases and acetyl transferases, increasing gene expression, while succinate and fumarate have an inhibitory role. This review is the first to analyze the interplay between epigenome, metabolome and cell signaling pathways in BC, and shows how their regulation contributes to tumor development and progression. Moreover, it summarizes non-invasive biomarkers that could be applied in clinical practice to improve diagnosis, monitoring, prognosis and the therapeutic options in BC.

Automated summary

Current diagnostic and follow-up methods for bladder cancer have limitations and there is a need for non-invasive biomarkers. Personalized treatments can improve patient quality of life and overall survival. The interplay between epigenetics and metabolism is closely linked to tumor phenotype, providing valuable insights for researchers and clinical decision-making in the field of bladder cancer.