Amino acid profiles as potential biomarkers for pediatric cancers: a preliminary communication

• Published in: Biomarkers in medicine Vol. 11; no. 8; pp. 619 - 627
• Main Authors: Synakiewicz, Anna, Sawicka-Zukowska, Malgorzata, Adrianowska, Natalia, Galezowska, Grazyna, Ratajczyk, Joanna, Owczarzak, Anna, Konieczna, Lucyna, Stachowicz-Stencel, Teresa
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Future Medicine Ltd 01-08-2017
• Subjects: Age; Alanine; amino acid profile; Amino acids; Asparagine; Aspartic acid; Biomarkers; Brain cancer; Cancer; cancer screening; Carcinogenesis; Chemotherapy; Children; Citrulline; Disease; Glutamic acid; Glutamine; hematological malignancies; Hematology; High-performance liquid chromatography; Infections; Isoleucine; Laboratories; Metabolism; Metabolites; metabolomics; Methionine; Patients; Pediatrics; personalized medicine; Phenylalanine; Physiology; Plasma; Serine; Solid tumors; Statistical analysis; treatment monitoring; Tryptophan; Tumors; tumors markers; Valine; γ-Aminobutyric acid; Poland; Japan; hematological malignancies; tumors markers; cancer screening; children; metabolomics; amino acid profile; cancer; treatment monitoring; solid tumors; personalized medicine
• ISSN: 1752-0363; 1752-0371
• DOI: 10.2217/bmm-2017-0102

Childhood cancer remains one of the main cause of death in the pediatric population. Amino acids (AAs) level alterations in plasma are considered to play a role in carcinogenesis and further course of the disease.
Seventy-seven children with cancer, including 47 with hematological and 30 with solid tumors were enrolled in this study and compared with healthy children. Twenty-two plasma-free AAs were determined by HPLC with fluorometric detection.
The results revealed significant decrease in glutamine levels for oncological patients and significant increase in aspartic acid, glutamic acid, asparagine, serine, citrulline, alanine, GABA, tryptophan, methionine, valine, phenylalanine and isoleucine levels in cancer children versus control.
Plasma-free AA profile as a biomarker, which combines metabolic and clinical data, as an innovative and interdisciplinary approach, may allow for faster detection of tumor occurrence, and in the future for monitoring patient during treatment, and possible prediction of cancer recurrence.