Profiling the metabolic disorder and detection of colorectal cancer based on targeted amino acids metabolomics

The morbidity of cancer keeps growing worldwide, and among that, the colorectal cancer (CRC) has jumped to third. Existing early screening tests for CRC are limited. The aim of this study was to develop a diagnostic strategy for CRC by plasma metabolomics. A targeted amino acids metabolomics method was developed to quantify 32 plasma amino acids in 130 CRC patients and 216 healthy volunteers, to identify potential biomarkers for CRC, and an independent sample cohort comprising 116 CRC subjects, 33 precancerosiss patients and 195 healthy volunteers was further used to validate the diagnostic model. Amino acids-related genes were retrieved from Gene Expression Omnibus and Molecular Signatures Database and analyzed. Three were chosen out of the 32 plasma amino acids examined. The tryptophan / sarcosine / glutamic acid -based receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve showed the area under the curve (AUC) of 0.955 (specificity 83.3