A Comprehensive Analysis of Metabolomics and Transcriptomics in Cervical Cancer

Abstract

Cervical cancer (CC) still remains a common and deadly malignancy among females in developing countries. More accurate and reliable diagnostic methods/biomarkers should be discovered. In this study, we performed a comprehensive analysis of metabolomics (285 samples) and transcriptomics (52 samples) on the potential diagnostic implication and metabolic characteristic description in cervical cancer. Sixty-two metabolites were different between CC and normal controls (NOR), in which 5 metabolites (bilirubin, LysoPC(17:0), n-oleoyl threonine, 12-hydroxydodecanoic acid and tetracosahexaenoic acid) were selected as candidate biomarkers for CC. The AUC value, sensitivity (SE), and specificity (SP) of these 5 biomarkers were 0.99, 0.98 and 0.99, respectively. We further analysed the genes in 7 significantly enriched pathways, of which 117 genes, that were expressed differentially, were mainly involved in catalytic activity. Finally, a fully connected network of metabolites and genes in these pathways was built, which can increase the credibility of our selected metabolites. In conclusion, our biomarkers from metabolomics could set a path for CC diagnosis and screening. Our results also showed that variables of both transcriptomics and metabolomics were associated with CC.

Onco-Multi-OMICS Approach: A New Frontier in Cancer Research

“…Based on the multi-OMICS data integration, a prediction model, developed and validated against a large cohort of breast cancer patients, showed several cancer-related metabolites; namely, glucose, Glycine, serine, and acetate are significantly associated with patient survival [ 55 ]. A similar OMICS integration approach including metabolomics and transcriptomics was applied to identify potential diagnostic and prognostic cancer biomarkers for prostate [ 56 ] and cervical cancers [ 57 ]. Ren et al identified the accumulation of certain metabolites such as S-adenosylhomoserine (SAH), 5-methylthioadensine (MTA), and S-adenosylmethionine (SAM) in prostate cancer compared to noncancerous tissues [ 56 ].…”

“…Elevated expression of Glycine N-methyltransferase ( GNMT ) evident from transcriptomics analysis was assumed to be responsible for the induction of SAH and was proposed as a tumor-susceptibility gene in prostate cancer [ 56 ]. On the other hand, Yang et al identified five metabolites, bilirubin, LysoPC(17:0), n-oleoyl threonine, 12-hydroxydodecanoic acid, and tetracosahexaenoic acid, as candidate biomarkers for cervical cancers [ 57 ]. Integration strategy leads to the reconstruction of an interconnected gene-metabolic network where seven biochemical pathways were used to identify five candidate metabolite biomarkers [ 57 ].…”

“…On the other hand, Yang et al identified five metabolites, bilirubin, LysoPC(17:0), n-oleoyl threonine, 12-hydroxydodecanoic acid, and tetracosahexaenoic acid, as candidate biomarkers for cervical cancers [ 57 ]. Integration strategy leads to the reconstruction of an interconnected gene-metabolic network where seven biochemical pathways were used to identify five candidate metabolite biomarkers [ 57 ]. The metabolomics integration studies provided systems-level insights into altered metabolic networks that are tightly regulated with transcriptional network.…”

Blood Metabolites Associate with Prognosis in Endometrial Cancer

“…As the most common female cancer, breast cancer has been extensively studied [10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17], also providing untapped opportunities in metabolomics studies in association with gynecological cancers. Moreover, biomarkers have been proposed for application in cervical and ovarian cancers based on metabolomics [18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25].…”

Comparative Metabolomics Analysis of Cervicitis in Human Patients and a Phenol Mucilage-Induced Rat Model Using Liquid Chromatography Tandem Mass Spectrometry

“…Previous study found serum metabolites contributing to discriminations between cervical cancer, cervical intraepithelial neoplasia, and chronic cervicitis (Ye et al, 2015 ). There is an investigation showed biomarkers for cervical cancer diagnosis and screening based on metabolomics and transcriptomics (Yang et al, 2017 ). However, what is the pathogenesis of cervicitis and what is the diagnostic biomarker between health and cervicitis patients?…”