Department of Oral Surgery and Pathology, School of Dentistry, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG), Av. Presidente Antônio Carlos, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, 6627, 31270-901, Brazil.
Department of Pathology, Biological Sciences Institute, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG), Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil.
Metabolomics. 2020 Sep 30;16(10):105. doi: 10.1007/s11306-020-01727-6.
Head and neck cancers are the seventh most common type of cancer worldwide, with almost half of the cases affecting the oral cavity. Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is the most common form of oral cancer, showing poor prognosis and high mortality. OSCC molecular pathogenesis is complex, resulting from a wide range of events that involve the interplay between genetic mutations and altered levels of transcripts, proteins, and metabolites. Metabolomics is a recently developed sub-area of omics sciences focused on the comprehensive analysis of small molecules involved in several biological pathways by high throughput technologies.
This review summarizes and evaluates studies focused on the metabolomics analysis of OSCC and oral premalignant disorders to better interpret the complex process of oral carcinogenesis. Additionally, the metabolic biomarkers signatures identified so far are also included. Moreover, we discuss the limitations of these studies and make suggestions for future investigations.
Although many questions about the metabolic features of OSCC have already been answered in metabolomic studies, further validation and optimization are still required to translate these findings into clinical applications.
头颈部癌症是全球第七大常见癌症类型，其中近一半的病例发生在口腔。口腔鳞状细胞癌（OSCC）是最常见的口腔癌，预后不良且死亡率高。OSCC 的分子发病机制复杂，源于广泛的事件，涉及基因突变和转录本、蛋白质和代谢物水平改变之间的相互作用。代谢组学是组学科学的一个新兴分支领域，专注于通过高通量技术对涉及多个生物途径的小分子进行全面分析。
本文综述并评估了聚焦于 OSCC 和口腔癌前病变的代谢组学分析的研究，以更好地阐释口腔癌变的复杂过程。此外，还包括迄今为止确定的代谢生物标志物特征。此外，我们讨论了这些研究的局限性，并为未来的研究提出了建议。
尽管代谢组学研究已经回答了许多关于 OSCC 代谢特征的问题，但仍需要进一步验证和优化，以将这些发现转化为临床应用。
