Repository logo
 

Accumulated Metabolites of Hydroxybutyric Acid Serve as Diagnostic and Prognostic Biomarkers of Ovarian High-Grade Serous Carcinomas


Type

Article

Change log

Authors

Hilvo, Mika 
de, Santiago Ines 
Gopalacharyulu, Peddinti 
Schmitt, Wolfgang D 
Budczies, Jan 

Abstract

Ovarian cancer is a heterogeneous disease of low prevalence but poor survival. Early diagnosis is critical for patients’ survival but often challenging because ovarian cancer symptoms are unclear and appear only in advanced stages of the disease. Finding more robust disease markers is therefore a clinical priority. Metabolomics is an emerging diagnostic tool that enables the detection of biomarkers reflecting alterations of tumor metabolism, a hallmark of cancer. We performed metabolomics profiling of serum and tumor tissue of high grade serous ovarian cancer (HGSOC) patients, and report novel diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers which indicate deregulation of hydroxybutyric acid (HBA) metabolism. The accumulation of HBA metabolites was associated with lower expression of succinic semialdehyde dehydrogenase (encoded by ALDH5A1), and with the presence of an epithelial-to-mesenchymal-transition (EMT) gene signature, implying a role for these metabolic alterations in cancer cell migration and invasion. In conclusion, our work reports the first comprehensive metabolomic investigation of HGSOC and proposes a new set of metabolites that can be used as diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers of the disease.

Description

Keywords

biomarker, metabolism, ketone body, hydroxybutyric acid, ovarian high-grade serous carcinoma

Journal Title

Cancer Research

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

American Association for Cancer Research
Sponsorship
This work was supported by the Academy of Finland post-doctoral fellow grants: MH decision 138201 and PG 265966. TA was supported by Academy of Finland (grants 272437, 269862, 279163, 292611) and Cancer Society of Finland. EIA is participant in the Charité Clinical Scientist Program funded by the Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin and the Berlin Institute of Health.