Serum metabolomics analysis of biomarkers and metabolic pathways in patients with colorectal cancer associated with spleen-deficiency and qi-stagnation syndrome or damp-heat syndrome: a prospective cohort study

作者：Min Zou, Yansheng Zhang, Jin-Kai Feng, Hao Tu, Ming-Bin Gui, Yanan Wang, Zijie Yang, Zeng-Qiang Yang, Ming Xu, Weiqiang Wu, Feng Gao · 发表于：Frontiers in Oncology · 年份：2023 · DOI：10.3389/fonc.2023.1190706 · 被引用次数：8 · 研究领域：Metabolomics and Mass Spectrometry Studies、Tryptophan and brain disorders、Gut microbiota and health

Objective To profile the serum metabolites and metabolic pathways in colorectal cancer (CRC) patients associated with spleen-deficiency and qi-stagnation syndrome (SDQSS) or damp-heat syndrome (DHS). Methods From May 2020 to January 2021, CRC patients diagnosed with traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) syndromes of SDQSS or DHS were enrolled. The clinicopathological data of the SDQSS and DHS groups were compared. The serum samples were analyzed by liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS). The variable importance in the projection >1, fold change ≥3 or ≤0.333, and P value ≤0.05 were used to identify differential metabolites between the two groups. Furthermore, areas under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve > 0.9 were applied to select biomarkers with good predictive performance. The enrichment metabolic pathways were searched through the database of Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes. Results 60 CRC patients were included (30 SDQSS and 30 DHS). The level of alanine aminotransferase was marginally significantly higher in the DHS group than the SDQSS group ( P = 0.051). The other baseline clinicopathological characteristics were all comparable between the two groups. 23 differential serum metabolites were identified, among which 16 were significantly up-regulated and 7 were significantly down-regulated in the SDQSS group compared with the DHS group. ROC curve analysis showed that (S)-3-methyl-2-oxopentanoic acid, neocembrene, 1-aminocyclopr...