Zastosowanie badań metabolomicznych w ocenie istotności nukleozydów jako potencjalnych wskaźników metabolicznych raka

Metabolomics studies are focused on analysis of complex interactions within biological systems and measurement of metabolites, which are low-molecular-weight compounds with masses below 1500 Daltons. Metabolites are considered as intermediate or end products of biochemical processes occurring within a given biological system and indirectly reflect changes in the genome, transcriptome, and proteome. However, the diversity of changes that may influence the final metabolic composition is highly complex. In contrast to the standard biochemical approach, metabolomics does not focus on the analysis of individual compounds but involves selecting a panel of metabolites, whose mutual correlations may indicate disrupted biochemical pathways in the organism due to the disease. This approach allows researchers to uncover previously unknown molecular mechanisms underlying disease progression, as well as to identify and propose new potential biomarkers for pathophysiological conditions that could have practical applications in clinical diagnostics. In addition, it has to be underlined that thanks to the rapid development of advanced instrumental analytical techniques along with computational bioinformatics methods the interpretation of obtained metabolomics data has become realistically achievable. The aim of present study, is to address the importance of nucleosides and their modified analogues as potential cancer markers. According to our studies as well as the literature data, nucleosides have been found elevated in terms of pathological state such as cancer. Therefore, we present the current state-of-the art knowledge of nucleosides’ significance measured in biological samples with the use of untargeted metabolomics studies. This approach is an extremely important strategy but mainly plays a cognitive role in biomarkers’ assessment. Next, we present the importance of targeted metabolomics studies in evaluation of nucleosides as cancer-related metabolic indicators. The targeted approach is treated as the verification strategy for the assessment of diagnostic utility of selected potential cancer markers.