Zhang Yaping, Qiu Ling, He Chengyan, Wang Yanmin, Liu Yujie, Zhang Dan, Li Zhili
1. Department of Biophysics and Structural Biology, Institute of Basic Medical Sciences, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & School of Basic Medicine, Peking Union Medical College, Beijing 100005, PR China.
2. Department of Clinical Laboratory, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College, Beijing 100730, PR China.
J Cancer. 2015 Oct 20;6(12):1276-81. doi: 10.7150/jca.12433. eCollection 2015.
Serum free fatty acids (FFAs) are correlated with pathological status, and change in serum FFA levels may be associated with thyroid diseases.
In this study, 664 serum samples from 322 healthy controls, 129 patients with benign thyroid disease (BTD), and 213 patients with thyroid cancer (TC) were collected. Chip-based direct-infusion nanoelectrospray-mass spectrometry was performed to simultaneously quantify six serum FFAs (i.e., C16:1, C18:1, C18:2, C18:3, C20:4, and C22:6.), with the excellent correlation coefficients of > 0.99 and relative standard deviation of <18% for all analysts. The Mann-Whitney U test was used to compare the differences in serum FFA levels between three above-mentioned groups.
Significant increase in the levels of C16:1, C18:1, C18:2, C18:3, C20:4, and C22:6 in healthy controls relative to TC patients and BTD patients was observed, and the levels of C16:1, C18:2, C20:4, and C22:6 in BTD patients were significantly decreased relative to TC patients. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis indicated that a combination of C16:1, C18:2, C20:4, and C22:6 has excellent diagnostic performance to differentiate BTD patients from TC patients, with an area under the ROC curve of 0.857, a sensitivity of 76.8%, and a specificity of 83.7%.
Change in serum levels of FFAs is closely correlated with thyroid diseases, and a biomarker panel (C16:1, C18:2, C20:4, and C22:6) should be of benefit to differentiate BTD patients from TC patients.
血清游离脂肪酸（FFA）与病理状态相关，血清FFA水平的变化可能与甲状腺疾病有关。
本研究收集了322名健康对照者、129例良性甲状腺疾病（BTD）患者和213例甲状腺癌（TC）患者的664份血清样本。采用基于芯片的直接进样纳米电喷雾质谱法同时定量六种血清FFA（即C16:1、C18:1、C18:2、C18:3、C20:4和C22:6），所有分析物的相关系数均大于0.99，相对标准偏差小于18%。采用曼-惠特尼U检验比较上述三组血清FFA水平的差异。
观察到健康对照者相对于TC患者和BTD患者，C16:1、C18:1、C18:2、C18:3、C20:4和C22:6水平显著升高，且BTD患者相对于TC患者，C16:1、C18:2、C20:4和C22:6水平显著降低。受试者工作特征（ROC）分析表明，C16:1、C18:2、C20:4和C22:6的组合在区分BTD患者和TC患者方面具有优异的诊断性能，ROC曲线下面积为0.857，灵敏度为76.8%，特异性为83.7%。
血清FFA水平的变化与甲状腺疾病密切相关，生物标志物组合（C16:1、C18:2、C20:4和C22:6）有助于区分BTD患者和TC患者。
