Pteridine Detection in Urine: the future of Cancer Diagnostics?

Abstract

Pteridines as biomarkers The aim of developing noninvasive cancer screening techniques that can lead to both diag­ nosis and prognosis is rapidly gaining popular­ ity in cancer biomarker research and discov­ ery. Accordingly, the field of cancer biomarker research is experiencing a shift from more tra­ ditional antigenic and proteomic approaches to the promising outlet of metabolic diagnostics. Indeed, the discovery of a family of related com­ pounds that can be implicated in multiple can­ cers at different stages is highly desirable. One instance where these goals may be realized lies in the class of compounds known as pteridines. Assigning pteridines as potential biomarkers for malignancy is certainly not a recent develop­ ment. Early studies examined their potential cancer­ revealing roles as early as the mid 1980s [1]. From these early studies, the biomarker literature has seen a flurry of studies conducted on assorted pteridines in further attempts to implicate them as urinary biomarkers for malignancy, spanning a wide breadth of analytical platforms including gas chromatography, liquid chromato graphy, liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry and capil­ lary electrophoresis. The findings of these studies are also quite remarkable: urinary pteridines have been implicated as potential biomarkers in a host of diseases, including breast, prostate, kidney and bladder cancers, as well as phenylketonuria [2–10]. Moreover, these studies have served to narrow the entire pteridine family down to a dozen key mem­ bers, including: xanthopterin, isoxanthopterin, pterin, 6­biopterin, 7­biopterin, pterin­6­carbox­ ylic acid, neopterin, pterin, tetrahydrobiopterin, 6­hydroxymethylpterin, 6,7­dimethylpterin and 6­methylpterin.