Spatial metabolomics on liver cirrhosis to hepatocellular carcinoma progression

BACKGROUND: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the deadliest cancers and is mainly developed from chronic liver diseases such as hepatitis-B infection-associated liver cirrhosis (LC). The progression from LC to HCC makes the detection of diagnostic biomarkers to be challenging. Hence, there have been constant efforts to improve on identifying the critical and predictive changes accompanying the disease progression. METHODS: In this study, we looked to using the mass spectrometry mediated spatial metabolomics technique to simultaneous examine hundreds of metabolites in an untargeted fashion. Additionally, metabolic profiles were compared between six subregions within the HCC tissue to collect spatial information. RESULTS: Through those metabolites, altered metabolic pathways in LC and HCC were identified. Specifically, the amino acid metabolisms and the glycerophospholipid metabolisms experienced the most changes. Many of the altered metabolites and metabolic pathways were able to be connected through the urea cycle. CONCLUSIONS: The identification of the key metabolites and pathways can expand our knowledge on HCC metabolic reprogramming and help us exam potential biomarkers for earlier detection of the malignant disease progression. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12935-022-02775-9.