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. 2021 Nov 4;11(11):758. doi: 10.3390/metabo11110758

Table 2.

Metabolomics in Breast Cancer. This is a summary of multiple studies used metabolomics to study breast cancer in different biological matrices (√).

Biological Materials Approach (Targeted/Untargeted) Altered Metabolites and Metabolic Pathways Ref.
Cell Line Tissue
GC–TOFMS (Targeted) Increased beta-alanine, 2-hydroyglutarate, glutamate, xanthine, and decreased glutamine in ER− subtype compared to ER+
Beta-alanine has shown the most significant change between breast cancer ER− and ER+
[55]
LC-/MRM-MS
GC-MS
(Targeted and Untargeted)
Up-regulation of histidine, glutamine, tyrosine, creatine, phenylalanine, lactic acid, adonitol, glutamic acid, and downregulation of 3,7-cholest-5-ene. The study identified tryptophan, tyrosine, and creatine, in serum and tissue as potential markers for invasive ductal carcinoma (IDC). [60]
GC-MS cytidine-5-monophosphate/pentadecanoic acid metabolic ratio was a significant discriminator between cancer and normal tissues [62]
NMR
FT-ICR-MS
glutaminolysis is connected to pyrimidine ring synthesis in all cell types
anaplerotic pyruvate carboxylation was activated in breast cancer versus primary cells
[70]
LC-MS/MS (Targeted) Glycine biosynthetic pathway was highly correlated with fast proliferating breast cancer cells [71]
LC-MS, GC-MS (Targeted) Higher level of aspartate in breast cancer tissues than adjacent non-tumor tissues, MCF-7 cell line than in MCF-10A cells [72]
MALDI MSI
(Targeted)
Adenosine diphosphate, adenosine monophosphate, adenosine triphosphate, aspartate, citrate, deoxycytidine diphosphate, fructose 1,6-bisphosphate, glutamate, glutathione, glutathione disulfide, guanosine diphosphate, N-acetylaspartate, NADH, UDP-glucose, DP-N-acetylglucosamine, UDP, UMP [73]
GC-TOF-MS
(UPLC-MS)
Phospholipids, including PtdCho-s, phosphatidylethanolamines, phosphatidylinositol, sphingomyelin, triglycerides [75,76]
LC-ESI-MS/NMR
(Targeted)
Up-regulation of choline, phosphocholine, glycerophosphocholine [77]
HR MAS MRS
(Untargeted)
Up-regulation of phosphocholine, glycine, taurine, creatine, lactate, ascorbate, and downregulation of glucose [78]

√ indicates type of biological material used in the study.