The metabolism of bile acid and amino acids is correlated with the diagnosis of pancreatic cancer.

Abstract Background Pancreatic cancer (PC) is the fourth leading cause of cancer death because of its subtle clinical symptoms in the early stage. To discover particular serum metabolites as potential biomarkers to differentiate pancreatic carcinoma from begin diseases (BD) is on urgent demand. Method To comprehensively analyze serum metabolites obtained from 14 patients with PC, 10 patients with BD and 10 healthy individuals (normal control, NC), we separated the metabolites using both reversed-phase liquid chromatography (RPLC) and hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography (HILIC), and the data were acquired on a high-resolution quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometer operated in the negative (ESI–) and positive (ESI+) electrospray ionization modes, respectively. Differential metabolites were selected by univariate (Student’s t test) and multivariate (orthogonal partial least squares-discriminant analysis (OPLS-DA)) statistics. Sequential window acquisition of all theoretical spectra (SWATH) analysis was further utilized to validate metabolites which we have found in the discovery stage. The receiver operator characteristics (ROC) curve analysis was performed to evaluate predictive clinical usefulness of 8 metabolites. Results A total of 8 metabolites including taurocholic acid, glycochenodexycholic acid, glycocholic acid, L-glutamine, glutamic acid, L-phenylalanine, L-tryptophan, and L-arginine were identified and relatively quantified as differential metabolites for discriminating PC, BD and NC. The 8 metabolites and their combination discriminated PC from BD and NC with well-performed area under the curve (AUC) values, sensitivity and specificity. Conclusion Bile acids (especially taurocholic acid) performed to be potential biomarkers to diagnose PC. And other amino acid (such as L-glutamine, glutamic acid, L-phenylalanine, L-tryptophan, and L-arginine) in the serum samples of PC might provide a sensitive, blood-borne diagnostic signature for the presence of PC or its precursor lesions.