Men Yuhao, Li Ling, Zhang Fen, Kong Xueyuan, Zhang Weidong, Hao Chongli, Wang Guotian
Department of Oncology, Affiliated Tengzhou Central People's Hospital of Jining Medical University, Tengzhou, Shandong 277599, P.R. China.
Department of Animal Breeding, College of Animal Sciences and Technology, Qingdao Agricultural University, Qingdao, Shandong 266109, P.R. China.
Oncol Lett. 2020 Feb;19(2):1331-1337. doi: 10.3892/ol.2019.11206. Epub 2019 Dec 11.
Epidemiologic studies demonstrated that the environment serves a crucial role in cancer development. Heavy metals, including arsenic (As), cadmium (cd), chromium (Cr), lead and mercury, are considered to be carcinogens or co-carcinogens. Furthermore, Cd has been detected in breast cancer (BC) tissue at high concentrations. The present study aimed to investigate the correlation between heavy metals detected in urine and urine metabolome of patients with BC, and their association with cancer development. Nuclear magnetic resonance was used to determine urine metabolites and an inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry system was used to detect heavy metals in urine samples. The results demonstrated that Cd was markedly increased in the urine of patients with BC compared with the control population (approximately 2-fold). Cr and As were also increased in the urine of patients with BC. In addition, numerous small molecule metabolites were altered in the urine of patients with BC compared with the control population. This study also demonstrated that alterations in small molecule metabolites in the urine of patients with BC were very similar to results from a previous report. These findings indicated that environmental exposure to Cd, As, or Cr could influence the urine levels of metabolites, which may be involved in BC development. Further investigation is therefore required to examine a larger range of samples from different countries or areas in order to understand the impact of heavy metals on metabolism and BC development.
流行病学研究表明，环境在癌症发展中起着至关重要的作用。包括砷（As）、镉（Cd）、铬（Cr）、铅和汞在内的重金属被认为是致癌物或辅助致癌物。此外，在乳腺癌（BC）组织中已检测到高浓度的镉。本研究旨在调查BC患者尿液中检测到的重金属与尿液代谢组之间的相关性，以及它们与癌症发展的关联。采用核磁共振法测定尿液代谢物，并用电感耦合等离子体质谱系统检测尿液样本中的重金属。结果表明，与对照组相比，BC患者尿液中的镉明显增加（约2倍）。BC患者尿液中的铬和砷也有所增加。此外，与对照组相比，BC患者尿液中的许多小分子代谢物发生了改变。本研究还表明，BC患者尿液中小分子代谢物的改变与先前报告的结果非常相似。这些发现表明，环境暴露于镉、砷或铬可能会影响代谢物的尿液水平，这可能与BC的发展有关。因此，需要进一步研究以检查来自不同国家或地区的更大范围的样本，以便了解重金属对代谢和BC发展的影响。
