In vitro discrimination between mesothelioma and lung cancer based on headspace volatile profiling

Abstract

<b>Background:</b> Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) present in breath are promising biomarkers for the detection of thoracic malignancies. To gain insight into the biological origin of these VOCs and their link to disease pathogenesis, it is important to investigate VOC production on a cellular level. <b>Aim:</b> We aimed to determine the headspace VOC profile of malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) and lung cancer (LC) cell lines in order to identify specific and discriminatory VOCs for each cell type. <b>Methods:</b> Six MPM cell lines (H2795, H2818, H2731, H-MESO-1, NKI04, MSTO-211H), representing different histological subtypes of MPM (epithelioid, sarcomatoid and biphasic), and two non-small cell LC cell lines (H2228, H1975) were cultured under appropriate conditions (37°C and 5% CO2). The VOCs present in their headspace air were analysed with gas chromatography – mass spectrometry. As controls, headspace air was sampled from flasks only containing culture medium. The data were pre-processed and medium-corrected before being subjected to unsupervised (principle component analysis, hierarchical clustering) and supervised (Lasso regression) data analysis. <b>Results:</b> <b>Conclusion:</b> Discrimination between almost all cell types was possible with high accuracy, highlighting the potential of VOC analysis for the (differential) diagnosis of thoracic malignancies and even subtyping of MPM.