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Review
. 2020 May 28;26(20):2514-2532.
doi: 10.3748/wjg.v26.i20.2514.

Metabolomics profile in gastrointestinal cancers: Update and future perspectives

Giulia Nannini  1 , Gaia Meoni  2 , Amedeo Amedei  1 , Leonardo Tenori  3
Affiliations
Review

Metabolomics profile in gastrointestinal cancers: Update and future perspectives

Giulia Nannini et al. World J Gastroenterol. .

Abstract

Despite recent progress in diagnosis and therapy, gastrointestinal (GI) cancers remain one of the most important causes of death with a poor prognosis due to late diagnosis. Serum tumor markers and detection of occult blood in the stool are the current tests used in the clinic of GI cancers; however, these tests are not useful as diagnostic screening since they have low specificity and low sensitivity. Considering that one of the hallmarks of cancer is dysregulated metabolism and metabolomics is an optimal approach to illustrate the metabolic mechanisms that belong to living systems, is now clear that this -omics could open a new way to study cancer. In the last years, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) metabolomics has demonstrated to be an optimal approach for diseases' diagnosis nevertheless a few studies focus on the NMR capability to find new biomarkers for early diagnosis of GI cancers. For these reasons in this review, we will give an update on the status of NMR metabolomic studies for the diagnosis and development of GI cancers using biological fluids.

Keywords: Biological fluids; Colorectal cancer; Gastric cancer; Metabolomics; Nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy; Pancreatic cancer.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Selection of discussed nuclear magnetic resonance-based metabolomics review. The figure shows the study workflow. First, we searched for metabolomic-based studies, then we limited our research to nuclear magnetic resonance-based metabolomic studies and finally we only selected 21 nuclear magnetic resonance-based metabolomic studies on human bio-fluids, in particular blood, urine and fecal water. NMR: Nuclear magnetic resonance.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Summary of the advantages and disadvantages of various bio-fluids. The figure shows the advantages and disadvantages linked to the use of the three bio-fluids take into consideration for human nuclear magnetic resonance analyses.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Most significant metabolites identified in the 21 studies analyzed. We have summarized in the outline the most significant metabolites identified in blood, urine and fecal water in the 21 evaluated studies. The green and the red arrows indicate respectively the increase or decrease of the metabolite detected in colorectal cancer or pancreatic cancer in the corresponding references. CRC: Colorectal cancer; PC: Pancreatic cancer.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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