Non-invasive, innovative and promising strategy for early diagnosis of breast cancer through the establishment of urinary volatile metabolomic profiles of breast cancer patients as well as from breast cancer tissues and breast cancer cell lines

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Volatomic pattern of breast cancer and cancer-free tissues as a powerful strategy to identify potential biomarkers

Publication . Silva, Catarina; Perestrelo, Rosa; Silva, Pedro; Capelinha, Filipa; Tomás, Helena; Câmara, José S.

Breast cancer (BC), ranked as the fifth amongst all cancers, remains at the top of women’s cancers worldwide followed by colorectal, lung, cervix, and stomach cancers. The main handicap of most of the screening/diagnostic methods is based on their low sensitivity and specificity and the invasive behavior of most sampling procedures. The aim of this study was to establish the volatomic pattern of BC and cancer-free (CF) tissues (n = 30) from the same patients, as a powerful tool to identify a set of volatile organic metabolite (VOM) potential BC biomarkers which might be used together or complement with the traditional BC diagnostics strategies, through the integration of chromatographic data, obtained by solid-phase microextraction followed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (SPME/GC-qMS), with chemometric tools. A total of four metabolites: limonene, decanoic acid, acetic acid and furfural presented the highest contribution towards discrimination of BC and CF tissues (VIP > 1, p < 0.05). The discrimination efficiency and accuracy of BC tissue metabolites was ascertained by ROC curve analysis that allowed the identification of some metabolites with high sensitivity and specificity. The results obtained with this approach suggest the possibility of identifying endogenous metabolites as a platform to find potential BC biomarkers and pave the way to investigate the related metabolomic pathways in order to improve BC diagnostic tools. Moreover, deeper investigations could unravel novel mechanistic insights into the disease pathophysiology.

2019Journal article

Open access

Untargeted urinary 1H NMR-based metabolomic pattern as a potential platform in breast cancer detection

Publication . Silva, Catarina L.; Olival, Ana; Perestrelo, Rosa; Silva, Pedro; Tomás, Helena; Câmara, José S.

: Breast cancer (BC) remains the second leading cause of death among women worldwide. An emerging approach based on the identification of endogenous metabolites (EMs) and the establishment of the metabolomic fingerprint of biological fluids constitutes a new frontier in medical diagnostics and a promising strategy to differentiate cancer patients from healthy individuals. In this work we aimed to establish the urinary metabolomic patterns from 40 BC patients and 38 healthy controls (CTL) using proton nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (1H-NMR) as a powerful approach to identify a set of BC-specific metabolites which might be employed in the diagnosis of BC. Orthogonal partial least squares-discriminant analysis (OPLS-DA) was applied to a 1H-NMR processed data matrix. Metabolomic patterns distinguished BC from CTL urine samples, suggesting a unique metabolite profile for each investigated group. A total of 10 metabolites exhibited the highest contribution towards discriminating BC patients from healthy controls (variable importance in projection (VIP) >1, p < 0.05). The discrimination efficiency and accuracy of the urinary EMs were ascertained by receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC) analysis that allowed the identification of some metabolites with the highest sensitivities and specificities to discriminate BC patients from healthy controls (e.g. creatine, glycine, trimethylamine N-oxide, and serine). The metabolomic pathway analysis indicated several metabolism pathway disruptions, including amino acid and carbohydrate metabolisms, in BC patients, namely, glycine and butanoate metabolisms. The obtained results support the high throughput potential of NMR-based urinary metabolomics patterns in discriminating BC patients from CTL. Further investigations could unravel novel mechanistic insights into disease pathophysiology, monitor disease recurrence, and predict patient response towards therapy.

2019Journal article

Open access

An integrative approach based on GC–qMS and NMR metabolomics data as a comprehensive strategy to search potential breast cancer biomarkers

Publication . Silva, Catarina Luís; Perestrelo, Rosa; Capelinha, Filipa; Tomás, Helena; Câmara, José S.

Introduction Globally, breast cancer (BC) is leading at the top of women's diseases and, as a multifactorial disease, there is the need for the development of new approaches to aid clinicians on monitoring BC treatments. In this sense, metabo lomic studies have become an essential tool allowing the establishment of interdependency among metabolites in biological samples. Objective The combination of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and gas chromatography–quadrupole mass spectrometry (GC–qMS) based metabolomic analyses of urine and breast tissue samples from BC patients and cancer-free individuals was used. Methods Multivariate statistical tools were used in order to obtain a panel of metabolites that could discriminate malignant from healthy status assisting in the diagnostic feld. Urine samples (n=30), cancer tissues (n=30) were collected from BC patients, cancer-free tissues were resected outside the tumor margin from the same donors (n=30) while cancer-free urine samples (n=40) where obtained from healthy subjects and analysed by NMR and GC–qMS methodologies. Results The orthogonal partial least square discriminant analysis model showed a clear separation between BC patients and cancer-free subjects for both classes of samples. Specifcally, for urine samples, the goodness of ft (R2 Y) and predictive ability (Q2 ) was 0.946 and 0.910, respectively, whereas for tissue was 0.888 and 0.813, revealing a good predictable accuracy. The discrimination efciency and accuracy of tissue and urine metabolites was ascertained by receiver operating charac teristic curve analysis that allowed the identifcation of metabolites with high sensitivity and specifcity. The metabolomic pathway analysis identifed several dysregulated pathways in BC, including those related with lactate, valine, aspartate and glutamine metabolism. Additionally, correlations between urine and tissue metabolites were investigated and fve metabo lites (e.g. acetone, 3-hexanone, 4-heptanone, 2-methyl-5-(methylthio)-furan and acetate) were found to be signifcant using a dual platform approach. Conclusion Overall, this study suggests that an improved metabolic profle combining NMR and GC–qMS may be useful to achieve more insights regarding the mechanisms underlying cancer.

2021Journal article

Open access

Madeira wine volatile profile. A platform to establish madeira wine aroma descriptors

Publication . Perestrelo, Rosa; Luís, Catarina; Câmara, José S.

In the present study we aimed to investigate the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that may potentially be responsible for specific descriptors of Madeira wine providing details about Madeira wine aroma notes at molecular level. Moreover, the wine aroma profile, based on the obtained data, will be a starting point to evaluate the impact of grape variety (Malvasia, Bual, Sercial, Verdelho and Tinta Negra), type (sweet, medium sweet, dry and medium dry), and age (from 3 to 20 years old) on Madeira wine sensorial properties. Firstly, a comprehensive and in-depth Madeira wine volatile profiling was carried out using headspace solid-phase microextraction combined with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (HS–SPME/GC–qMS). Secondly, a relation among the varietal, fermentative and aging aroma compounds, and their aroma descriptors with the Madeira wine sensorial properties was assessed. A total of 82 VOCs, belonging to different chemical families were identified, namely 21 esters, 13 higher alcohols, ten terpenic compounds, nine fatty acids, seven furanic compounds, seven norisoprenoids, six lactones, four acetals, four volatile phenols and one sulphur compound. From a sensorial point of view, during the aging process the wine lost its freshness and fruitiness odor related to the presence of some varietal and fermentative compounds, whereas other descriptors such as caramel, dried fruits, spicy, toasty and woody, arose during ageing. The Maillard reaction and diffusion from the oak were the most important pathways related with these descriptors. A relationship-based approach was used to explore the impact of grape variety, wine type, and age on Madeira wine sensorial properties based on shared number of VOCs and their odors.

2019Journal article

Open access

Untargeted fingerprinting of cider volatiles from different geographical regions by HS-SPME/GC-MS

Publication . Perestrelo, Rosa; Silva, Catarina L.; Silva, Pedro; Medina, Sonia; Pereira, Regina; Câmara, José S.

The volatomic fingerprint of ciders produced in different geographical regions from Madeira Island was estab lished using headspace solid phase microextraction combined with gas chromatography mass spectrometry (HS SPME/GC–MS) in order to explore the effects of geographical region on the volatile pattern ciders in addition to identify potential molecular geographic markers. A total of 107 volatile organic compounds (VOCs) belonging to different chemical families were identified from which 50 VOCs are common to all ciders analysed. Significant differences in the relative content of VOCs from ciders of different geographical regions were observed. The potential of the identified VOCs for ciders discrimination according to region was assessed through chemometric tools, such as principal components analysis (PCA) and partial least squares-discriminant analysis (PLS-DA). The PCA showed significant differences among ciders from different island geographical regions. Fifteen VOCs re sponsible for ciders discrimination were identified by PLS-DA. Fifteen VOCs, namely five terpenoids, four al cohols, three acids and three esters, present variable importance in projection (VIP) values higher than one. Our findings provide relevant information related to volatile signature of ciders produced in Madeira Island, which may be a useful tool to cider-making process contributing to improve the quality of the final product. In addition, the geographical discrimination recognizes the unique and distinctive characteristics that will allow in the future to protect the quality and typicity of products originating in certain geographical regions.

2019Journal article

Open access