Division of Gastroenterology, Kobe University Graduate School of Medicine, 7-5-1 Kusunoki-Cho, Chu-o-ku, Kobe, Hyogo, Japan.
Biomark Med. 2011 Aug;5(4):451-60. doi: 10.2217/bmm.11.41.
Several screening methods have been applied for the early diagnosis of colorectal cancer, but most colorectal cancer patients are not diagnosed at a localized stage. In order to find novel biomarkers for the diagnosis of colorectal cancer, profiling of the serum levels of fatty acids, which are the main components of fats and are important factors for human metabolism, was performed using the sera of colorectal cancer patients.
MATERIALS & METHODS: A total of 42 colorectal cancer patients and eight healthy volunteers participated in this study. The serum levels of fatty acids, including free fatty acids and esterified fatty acids, were evaluated by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry. Then, partial least squares discriminant analysis was performed on the basis of the serum fatty acids detected by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry.
The serum levels of the nine fatty acids exhibited distinct differences between the colorectal cancer patients and healthy volunteers: the levels of four fatty acids were higher in the colorectal cancer patients than the healthy volunteers, and those of the other five fatty acids were lower. These changes were also observed at a very early clinical stage. Furthermore, the levels of very-long-chain fatty acids had a tendency to be increased in the sera of the colorectal cancer patients.
The pathogenesis of colorectal cancer leads to changes in the composition of serum fatty acids including free fatty acids and esterified fatty acids. These results suggest that serum fatty acid profiling may be used as a novel diagnostic tool for early-stage colorectal cancer.
已经应用了几种筛选方法来进行结直肠癌的早期诊断，但大多数结直肠癌患者并未在局部阶段得到诊断。为了找到用于结直肠癌诊断的新型生物标志物，对血清中脂肪酸水平进行了分析，脂肪酸是脂肪的主要成分，也是人体代谢的重要因素。
本研究共纳入了 42 例结直肠癌患者和 8 例健康志愿者。采用气相色谱/质谱法评估了游离脂肪酸和酯化脂肪酸等血清脂肪酸的水平。然后，基于气相色谱/质谱检测到的血清脂肪酸进行偏最小二乘判别分析。
结直肠癌患者和健康志愿者的血清中 9 种脂肪酸水平存在明显差异：与健康志愿者相比，结直肠癌患者的 4 种脂肪酸水平较高，而另外 5 种脂肪酸水平较低。这些变化在非常早期的临床阶段也观察到了。此外，结直肠癌患者血清中非常长链脂肪酸的水平有升高的趋势。
结直肠癌的发病机制导致了包括游离脂肪酸和酯化脂肪酸在内的血清脂肪酸组成的变化。这些结果表明，血清脂肪酸谱分析可能成为早期结直肠癌的新型诊断工具。
