State Key Laboratory of Natural Medicines, Clinical Metabolomics Center, School of Traditional Chinese Pharmacy, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, China.
Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Pediatric Respiratory Disease, Institute of Pediatrics, Medical Metabolomics Center, Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing, China.
Metabolomics. 2022 Aug 29;18(9):71. doi: 10.1007/s11306-022-01929-0.
Solitary pulmonary nodules (SPNs) are commonly found in imaging technologies, but are plagued by high false-positive rates.
We aimed to identify metabolic alterations in SPN etiology and diagnosis using less invasive plasma metabolomics and lipidomics.
In total, 1160 plasma samples were obtained from healthy volunteers (n = 280), benign SPNs (n = 157) and malignant SPNs (stage I, n = 723) patients enrolled from 5 independent centers. Gas chromatography-triple quadrupole mass spectrometry (GC‒MS) and liquid chromatography-Q Exactive Hybrid Quadrupole-Orbitrap mass spectrometry (LC‒MS) were used to analyze the samples for untargeted metabolomics and lipidomics.
GC‒MS-based metabolomics revealed 1336 metabolic features, while LC‒MS-based lipidomics revealed 6088 and 2542 lipid features in the positive and negative ion modes, respectively. The metabolic and lipidic characteristics of healthy vs. benign or malignant SPNs exhibited substantial pattern differences. Of note, benign and malignant SPNs had no significant variations in circulating metabolic and lipidic markers and were validated in four other centers. This study demonstrates evidence of early metabolic alterations that can possibly distinguish SPNs from healthy controls, but not between benign and malignant SPNs.
孤立性肺结节（SPN）在影像学技术中很常见，但存在很高的假阳性率。
我们旨在使用微创的血浆代谢组学和脂质组学来识别 SPN 病因和诊断中的代谢变化。
从 5 个独立中心招募了 1160 个血浆样本，包括健康志愿者（n=280）、良性 SPN 患者（n=157）和恶性 SPN 患者（I 期，n=723）。气相色谱-三重四极杆质谱（GC-MS）和液相色谱-Q Exactive Hybrid Quadrupole-Orbitrap 质谱（LC-MS）用于分析样本的非靶向代谢组学和脂质组学。
GC-MS 代谢组学揭示了 1336 种代谢特征，而 LC-MS 脂质组学分别在正离子模式和负离子模式下揭示了 6088 和 2542 种脂质特征。健康人群与良性或恶性 SPN 之间的代谢和脂质特征表现出明显的模式差异。值得注意的是，良性和恶性 SPN 在循环代谢和脂质标志物方面没有显著差异，并在另外四个中心得到了验证。本研究表明，早期代谢变化可能有助于将 SPN 与健康对照区分开来，但不能区分良性和恶性 SPN。
