TD-GC-MS Analysis of Volatile Metabolites of Human Lung Cancer and Normal Cells In vitro

Abstract

The aim of this study was to confirm the existence of volatile organic compounds (VOC) specifically released or consumed by the lung cancer cell line A549, which could be used in future screens as biomarkers for the early detection of lung cancer. For comparison, primary human bronchial epithelial cells (HBEpC) and human fibroblasts (hFB) were included. VOCs were detected in the headspace of cell cultures or medium controls following adsorption on solid sorbents, thermodesorption, and analysis by gas chromatography mass spectrometry. Using this approach, we identified VOCs that behaved similarly in normal and transformed cells. Thus, concentrations of 2-pentanone and 2,4-dimethyl-1-heptene were found to increase in the headspace of A549, HBEpC, and hFB cell cultures. In addition, the ethers methyl tert-butyl ether and ethyl tert-butyl ether could be detected at elevated levels in the case of A549 cells and one of the untransformed cell lines. However, especially branched hydrocarbons and alcohols were seen increased more frequently in untransformed than A549 cells. A big variety of predominantly aldehydes and the ester n-butyl acetate were found at decreased concentrations in the headspace of all cell lines tested compared with medium controls. Again, more different aldehydes were found to be decreased in hFB and HBEpC cells compared with A549 cells and 2-butenal was metabolized exclusively by both control cell lines. These data suggest that certain groups of VOCs may be preferentially associated with the transformed phenotype. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev; 19(1); 182-95. ©2010 AACR.

Profiling allergic asthma volatile metabolic patterns using a headspace-solid phase microextraction/gas chromatography based methodology

“…The predominant group identified in exhaled breath were the alkanes (26 compounds). The identified compounds are also reported in other studies performed using exhaled breath [27][28][29].…”

“…The classification model was assessed by internal cross-validation (7 blocks) giving a model with 4 LVs with a classification rate of 88%. A limited number of metabolites (28) were used to classify children with allergic asthma and healthy controls using discriminant analysis, with special highlight to compounds linked to oxidative stress such as alkanes and aldehydes [30]. These metabolites were not unique to children with allergic asthma and were also observed in healthy children in greater or lesser abundance as normal human metabolism generates a wide variety of metabolites.…”

Allergic asthma exhaled breath metabolome: A challenge for comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography

“…The methylated alkanes family have also been previously reported as these may well be important in asthma characterization [2,64]. These compounds also have an important role in diseases, in which oxidative stress apparently may be involved, but to other extents, and with different consequences than asthma, such as lung and breast cancer, as well as in lung cancer cell lines [65][66][67]. These compounds have been reported in literature in other exhaled breath studies associated to pathological states of the lungs, but as individual markers.…”

Adsorption Properties of Typical Lung Cancer Breath Gases on Ni-SWCNTs through Density Functional Theory

“…Phillips et al proposed the idea using breath gases to diagnose lung cancer and screen out typical lung cancer breath gases [8,9]. Currently, the methods used to analyze the VOCs of breath gases for lung cancer detection include proton-transfer reaction mass spectrometry (PTR-MS) [10], selected ion flow tube mass spectrometry (SIFT-MS) [11], gas chromatographymass spectrometry (GC-MS) [12], and optical spectroscopy [13]. However, the shortcomings of the equipment, such as high price, slow speed, and poor portability, prevent its popularization.…”