Chinese scientists have created a new way to capture tumor-specific metabolites

, Beijing, June 29 (Reporter Zhou Mengshuang) cells and people like, need to eat and drink Lazar. The difference is that their "food" is a small molecule, also known as metabolites. Once a normal cell carries one or more mutated genes, causing the division to spiral out of control, it becomes cancer cells. Thousands of cancer cells pile up to form tumors, which are malignant tumors. Compared with normal cells, the various metabolites absorbed and discharged by cancer cells will change accordingly, and the magnetic resonance imaging of these specific metabolites is clinically marked by isotopes will allow you to "see" the shape of the tumor and, accordingly, the tumor type.
Recently, the Beijing Brain Science and Brain-like Research Center, Goroping Laboratory and the Concord Hospital Xiong Nanxiang Team of Tongji Medical College of Huahua University of Science and Technology, published their research results in Nature Communications, providing a new way to find more metabolites needed for tumor growth.
finding more tumor-specific metabolites has been one of the most challenging directions in cancer research. The conventional practice is to use tumor tissue from patients for in-body analysis, or to transfer tumor cells to mice for post-tumor analysis, Goropin said. But when cancerous tissue is taken out of the body, or supported by animals, their "eating habits and living environment" are changed, and the results may be far from what they really are.
method is to find differential molecules by large-scale comparison of blood samples from tumor patients and normal people. However, early tumors are very small in weight relative to the entire body, and the metabolites they release into the blood are quickly diluted nearly a thousand or nearly ten thousand times, looking like needles in a haystack.
tumor needs blood to provide a variety of nutrients to sustain growth. Blood flows through arteries, then through a slender network of capillaries, and then into the veins of the tumor. "In order to prevent small molecules released by tumors from entering the entire human blood circulation being diluted, can direct analysis be done at the moment when blood flows in and out of the tumor?" After repeated in-body simulations and animal experiments, the team found a small artery responsible for transporting blood into the tumor in a brain tumor before it was surgically removed, and a small vein responsible for collecting tumor blood, taking very little blood each, and then measuring and comparing blood samples from the same patient's tumor upstream and downstream.
Through very sophisticated chromatography mass spectrometrography, researchers accurately identified 204 small molecular metabolites in blood samples and found that 14 metabolites were absorbed and utilized in large quantities for brain tumors, and 19 metabolites were released in large quantities by brain tumors. By studying specific metabolic small molecules used and released by these tumors, new targets can be found to control tumor growth.
on the other hand, because of the complexity of cancer types, such as brain tumors, there are 120 different subsypes, these metabolites can be used as potential markers in the future for imaging analysis, the tumor is typed to help with precision treatment.
" method can push other cancers. Gorsten said. At present, the research team has been working with major hospitals in Beijing and Wuhan to push this new approach to cancer research such as lung and stomach cancer. The ultimate goal is to really understand what cancer cells are "eating" to learn new ways to control tumor growth.