Assessment of plasma amino acids, purines, tricarboxylic acid cycle metabolites, and lipids levels in NSCLC patients based on LC-MS/ MS quantification

Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is the most common type of malignant tumor of the lung with poor prog-nosis. Currently, there is still no effective strategy for diagnosing lung cancer from the perspective of multiple biomarkers containing both polar and nonpolar molecules. In order to explore the pathological changes of NSCLC at the endogenous molecule levels, and further establish the strategy for identifying and monitoring drug efficacy of NSCLC, targeted metabolomics and lipidomics studies were established with NSCLC patients. Polar metabo-lites including 21 amino acids, 7 purines, 6 tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle metabolites, and nonpolar lipids like phosphatidylcholine (PC), phosphatidylethanolamine (PE), lysophosphatidylcholine (LPC), lysophosphatidyle-thanolamine (LPE), sphingomyelin (SM), and ceramide (Cer), diacylglycerol (DG), triacylglycerol (TG), were quantitatively determined based on LC-MS/MS, taking into account their metabolism were significantly con-cerned with the occurrence of lung cancer in previous study. As a result, 14 polar metabolites and 16 lipids were prominently altered in the plasma of NSCLC patients, among which, after multivariate statistical analysis, LPC 18:0 (sn-2), L-Phenylalanine (Phe), oxaloacetic acid (OAA) and xanthine (XA) were screened out as potential small molecules and lipid biomarkers for NSCLC. Furthermore, a new strategy for formulating equation of NSCLC identification was proposed and clinical utility was successfully evaluated through Kangai injection treatment to NSCLC patients. Taking together, this study investigated the pathological changes of NSCLC from the perspective of endogenous polar and nonpolar molecules, and shed a light on identification of NSCLC.

Automated summary

This study investigated the pathological changes of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) from the perspective of endogenous polar and nonpolar molecules. Targeted metabolomics and lipidomics studies were conducted, revealing potential small molecule and lipid biomarkers for NSCLC. A new strategy for formulating an equation for NSCLC identification was proposed and successfully evaluated through clinical utility.