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Review
. 2023 Oct 8;13(10):1059.
doi: 10.3390/metabo13101059.

The Role of Mass Spectrometry in Hepatocellular Carcinoma Biomarker Discovery

Eric Yi-Liang Shen  1   2   3 , Mei Ran Abellona U  3   4 , I Jane Cox  5   6 , Simon D Taylor-Robinson  3
Affiliations
Review

The Role of Mass Spectrometry in Hepatocellular Carcinoma Biomarker Discovery

Eric Yi-Liang Shen et al. Metabolites. .

Abstract

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the main liver malignancy and has a high mortality rate. The discovery of novel biomarkers for early diagnosis, prognosis, and stratification purposes has the potential to alleviate its disease burden. Mass spectrometry (MS) is one of the principal technologies used in metabolomics, with different experimental methods and machine types for different phases of the biomarker discovery process. Here, we review why MS applications are useful for liver cancer, explain the MS technique, and briefly summarise recent findings from metabolomic MS studies on HCC. We also discuss the current challenges and the direction for future research.

Keywords: biomarkers; hepatocellular carcinoma; mass spectrometry; metabolomics.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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