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Potential plasma lipid biomarkers in early-stage breast cancer

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Abstract

Objective

To find new biomarkers for early diagnosis of breast cancer.

Results

847 lipid species were identified from 78 plasma samples (37 breast cancer samples and 41 healthy controls) by ultra HPLC coupled with quadrupole time-of-flight tandem mass spectrometry. These include 321 glycerophospholipids (GPs), 265 glycerolipids (GLs), 91 sphingolipids (SPs), 77 fatty acyls (FAs), 68 sterol lipids (STs), 18 prenol lipids (PRs), 6 polyketides (PKs), and 1 saccharolipid (SL). Separation was observed from an orthogonal signal correction Partial Least Square Discrimination Analysis model. Based on this analysis, six differentiating lipids were identified: PC (20:2/20:5), PC (22:0/24:1), TG (12:0/14:1), and DG (18:1/18:2) had high levels, whereas PE (15:0/19:1) and N-palmitoyl proline had low levels in the breast cancer samples compared with the healthy controls. Furthermore, significant differences in metabolites were found among some clinical characteristics.

Conclusions

Our results reveal that six specific lipids could serve as potential biomarkers for early diagnosis of breast cancer.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of General Surgery, First Hospital of Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100016, China

    Nan Jiang, Guofen Zhang, Lijie Pan, Chengping Yan, Liwei Zhang & Guoshan Yang

  2. Department of Pathology, First Hospital of Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100016, China

    Yan Weng

  3. Beijing Qiji Biotechnology Company, Beijing, 100193, China

    Wenjun Wang & Xianyang Chen

Authors
  1. Nan Jiang
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  2. Guofen Zhang
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  3. Lijie Pan
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  4. Chengping Yan
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  5. Liwei Zhang
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  6. Yan Weng
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  7. Wenjun Wang
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  8. Xianyang Chen
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  9. Guoshan Yang
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Correspondence to Guoshan Yang.

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Supporting information

Supplementary Table 1—Clinicopathological characteristics of 37 patients with early-stage breast cancer.

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Supplementary material 1 (DOCX 17 kb)

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Jiang, N., Zhang, G., Pan, L. et al. Potential plasma lipid biomarkers in early-stage breast cancer. Biotechnol Lett 39, 1657–1666 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10529-017-2417-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10529-017-2417-z

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