A pilot metabolomics study on clear cell renal cell carcinoma

Clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) is fundamentally a metabolic disease. To investigate the underlying metabolite changes in the occurrence of ccRCC, we analyzed untargeted metabolomics of 15 ccRCC samples and paired adjacent non-malignant renal tissues by UHPLC-MS/MS analyses. In this study, 511 differential metabolites were screened, of which the top ten up-regulated metabolites in ccRCC were histamine, 1-methylnicotinamide, L-kynurenine, cortisol, tetrahydrocorticosterone, calcitriol, D-erythrose 4-phosphate, citric acid, sedoheptulose 1,7-bisphosphate, and UDP-alpha-D-galactose, and the top down-regulated metabolites were D-cysteine, acetylcholine, pantothenic acid, cytosine, UMP, biocytin, dUMP, 5-phosphoribosyl 1-pyrophosphate, cytidine-5'-monophosphate, and 16α-hydroxyestrone. KEGG pathways enrichment analysis further demonstrated several highlighted pathways: steroid hormone biosynthesis, pyrimidine metabolism, and vitamin digestion and absorption. Our study reveals metabolic patterns of ccRCC and provides insight into the potential biomarker panel to diagnose ccRCC.