Metabolomic profile of neuroendocrine tumors of gastrointestinal and pulmonary originPrognostic role and biological relevance

Abstract

Reprogrammed metabolism encompasses the capacity of cells to respond or adapt their metabolic signalling to support and enable cell survival in unfavourable or hostile conditions. This ability is enhanced in cancer cells to improve their adaptive phenotype and maintain both viability and uncontrolled proliferation. Metabolic flexibility is therefore one of the key hallmarks of cancer, although pathways involved in the metabolic plasticity of each cancer type remain to be elucidated. Metabolites are the final products of this adaptation, reflecting the aberrant changes in the genomic, transcriptomic and proteomic variability of tumors, and therefore provide useful biological and clinical information on cancer biology. This, together with the fact that metabolomics can be easily performed in readily accessible biological samples (i.e. plasma, urine), makes metabolic profiling of cancer patients a promising tool to characterize the tumor phenotype and identify novel biomarkers of potential clinical use...