Integrated analysis of metabolome in a EUS-FNA sample with transcriptome in the TCGA cohort of pancreatic head and body/tail adenocarcinoma

Metabolome profiles are largely unknown for pancreatic head cancers, in which the predominant anatomical feature is the exosure of bile, pancreatic juice, and duodenal juice. In this research, 30 head and 30 body/tail cytological samples acquired by endoscopic ultrasound-guided fine needle aspiration (EUS-FNA) of pancreatic adenocarcinoma were delivered for liquid chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry (LC-MS). Transcriptome analysis was performed using the sequencing data from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) cohort. LC-MS obtained 4,857 features in EUS-FNA cytological samples, and 586 metabolites were certified. Among them, 30 differential metabolites were identified. In the TCGA cohort, 247 differential metabolism genes were selected from 1,583 differential genes. The integrated analysis identified the top three enriched metabolic pathways as follows: branched chain amino acid (BCAA) biosynthesis; glycerophospholipid metabolism; and phenylalanine metabolism. In cell line, BCAA promoted pancreatic cancer proliferation and inhibited Oxaliplatin-induced apoptosis. In conclusion, metabolomic analysis with the EUS-FNA sample is feasible for pancreatic cancer. The integrated analysis can identify key metabolites and enzyme-coded genes between pancreatic head and body/tail adenocarcinoma. Anti-BCAA metabolism therapy may exert promising effect, especially for the body/tail cancer.