Chen Xing, Xu Fengjuan, Wang Yue, Pan Yuefeng, Lu Deji, Wang Ping, Ying Kejing, Chen Enguo, Zhang Weimin
Biosensor National Special Laboratory, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Key Laboratory of Biomedical Engineering of National Education Ministry, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou PR China.
Cancer. 2007 Aug 15;110(4):835-44. doi: 10.1002/cncr.22844.
The specific volatile organic compounds (VOCs) exhaled by lung cancer cells in the microenvironment are the source biomarkers of lung cancer and also serve as direct evidence that the diagnosis of lung cancer by breath is possible. However, to the authors' knowledge, few articles published to date have provided accurate VOCs in the microenvironment, thereby leading to different points of view with regard to searching for biomarkers in the breath from lung cancer patients In this article, an innovative pathologic analysis method of lung cancer and the early diagnosis of lung cancer at the cellular level were introduced for this purpose.
Solid-phase microextraction combined with gas chromatography is used as the detection system to determine the VOCs in the culture medium of several target cells, including different kinds of lung cancer cells, bronchial epithelial cells, tastebud cells, osteogenic cells, and lipocytes. As a result, each kind of cells has a unique chromatogram. There are 4 special VOCs that were found to exist in all culture mediums of lung cancer cells, which are the metabolic products of lung cancer cells and can be viewed as markers of lung cancer.
The authors were able to determine a correlation between VOCs in the metabolic products of lung cancer cells and VOCs in the breath of lung cancer patients, some of whom had stage I and II disease, and eventually hope to certify the biomarkers in the breath of lung cancer patients.
This research is significant and provides the basis for the noninvasive detection and the breath diagnosis of lung cancer using an electronic nose.
肺癌细胞在微环境中呼出的特定挥发性有机化合物（VOCs）是肺癌的源生物标志物，也是通过呼吸诊断肺癌可能性的直接证据。然而，据作者所知，迄今为止发表的文章中很少有提供微环境中准确的VOCs信息，从而导致在寻找肺癌患者呼吸中的生物标志物方面存在不同观点。为此，本文介绍了一种创新的肺癌病理分析方法以及细胞水平上肺癌的早期诊断方法。
采用固相微萃取结合气相色谱作为检测系统，以确定几种靶细胞培养基中的VOCs，这些靶细胞包括不同类型的肺癌细胞、支气管上皮细胞、味蕾细胞、成骨细胞和脂肪细胞。结果，每种细胞都有独特的色谱图。发现有4种特殊的VOCs存在于所有肺癌细胞的培养基中，它们是肺癌细胞的代谢产物，可被视为肺癌的标志物。
作者能够确定肺癌细胞代谢产物中的VOCs与部分处于I期和II期的肺癌患者呼吸中的VOCs之间的相关性，并最终希望验证肺癌患者呼吸中的生物标志物。
本研究具有重要意义，为使用电子鼻对肺癌进行无创检测和呼吸诊断提供了依据。
