NMR Spectroscopy-Based Metabolomics of Platelets to Analyze Brain Tumors.

Shivanand Pudakalakatti,José S Enriquez,Daniel Carson,Pratip K Bhattacharya,Mary C Farach-Carson,Niki M Zacharias,Krishna P Bhat,Amy B Heimberger,Frederick F Lang,Alessandra Audia,Nabihah Tayob,Dontrey Bourgeois,Anirudh Mukhopadhyay,Steven W Millward

doi:10.3390/reports4040032

Abstract

“Tumor-educated platelets” have recently generated substantial interest for the diagnosis of cancer. We hypothesized that tumor educated platelets from patients with brain tumors will reflect altered metabolism compared to platelets from healthy volunteers. Here, in a pilot study, we have employed nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy in platelets from brain tumor patients to demonstrate altered metabolism compared to the platelets obtained from healthy volunteers.

Highlights

Brain tumors are a large group of central nervous system cancers that are not uniformly fatal, can be life changing
Brain tumor patient platelets (n = 10) revealed that lactate, acetate, glutamine, glutamate, succinate, alanine and pyruvate levels are significantly altered (p < 0.01, Figure 1). These data may indicate homeostatic changes of reduced pyruvate, lactate, and alanine in glycolysis and reduced tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle activity indicted by reduced concentration of glutamate, glutamine, and succinate in the brain cancer patient-derived platelets relative to normal volunteers
The vast majority of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) provided by metabolic activity is via the TCA cycle and glycolysis, suggesting that platelet function in brain tumor patients is sefunction [23]

Summary

Introduction

Brain tumors are a large group of central nervous system cancers that are not uniformly fatal, can be life changing. Some of them such as gliomas arise in the specialized glial cells and glioblastoma (GBM), a grade IV glioma is a lethal type of brain cancer. The current standard of care for GBM patients includes surgery followed by chemo-radiation. These tumors often recur, and early detection of primary and recurrent tumors remains challenging. The blood-based biomarkers have been explored to assess treatment response and disease status since re-biopsy and repeat surgery may be impractical for brain tumors. Despite the potential, blood-based biomarkers such as circulating tumor cells, exosomes, and cell free deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) have yet to become routine clinical diagnostics

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