Department of Health Technology and Informatics, Faculty of Health and Social Sciences, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University , Kowloon , Hong Kong Special Administrative Region , China.
Department of Life Science, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology , Clear Water Bay , Hong Kong Special Administrative Region , China.
Expert Rev Mol Diagn. 2019 Sep;19(9):785-793. doi: 10.1080/14737159.2019.1656530. Epub 2019 Aug 21.
: Metabolomics, the study of metabolites, is a promising research field for cancers. The metabolic pathway in a tumor cell is different from a normal tissue cell. There are two approaches to study the metabolism, targeted and untargeted. The general approach is that metabolomic data are interpreted by bioinformatics tools correlating with metabolomic databases to obtain significant findings. With the use of specific analysis tools, such as nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and mass spectrometer (MS) combined with chromatography, metabolic profile or metabolic fingerprint of various biological specimens could be obtained. The applications of metabolomics are used to discover potential cancer biomarkers and monitor the metastatic state, therapeutic and drug response for better patient management. : In this review, the author introduce metabolomics and discuss the use of metabolomics approaches in different cancers, including the study of colorectal cancer, prostate cancer, liver cancer, pancreatic cancer and breast cancer using NMR and MS. : Knowledge on the molecular basis of cancer metabolism and its potential clinical applications has been improving recently. However, there are still many challenges for the technological development and integration of metabolomics with other omics spaces such as genomics. In the near future, it is expected that metabolomics will play an important role in cancer molecular diagnostics.
代谢组学是研究代谢物的一门学科，是癌症研究的一个很有前途的领域。肿瘤细胞中的代谢途径与正常组织细胞不同。有两种方法可以研究代谢物，即靶向和非靶向。一般的方法是通过生物信息学工具与代谢数据库相关联来解释代谢组学数据，以获得有意义的发现。通过使用特定的分析工具，如核磁共振（NMR）和质谱（MS）与色谱法相结合，可以获得各种生物样本的代谢谱或代谢指纹。代谢组学的应用可用于发现潜在的癌症生物标志物，监测转移状态、治疗效果和药物反应，从而更好地进行患者管理。在这篇综述中，作者介绍了代谢组学，并讨论了代谢组学方法在不同癌症中的应用，包括使用 NMR 和 MS 研究结直肠癌、前列腺癌、肝癌、胰腺癌和乳腺癌。最近，关于癌症代谢的分子基础及其潜在临床应用的知识不断提高。然而，代谢组学与其他组学领域（如基因组学）的技术发展和整合仍然存在许多挑战。在不久的将来，代谢组学有望在癌症分子诊断中发挥重要作用。
