Analiza lipidomiczna w diagnostyce chorób mózgu

Fast and accurate diagnosis of brain tumors is a critical step in effective patient therapy. However, challenges arise due to the complex anatomy of the brain and the late manifestation of symptoms, making diagnosis often difficult. Therefore, interdisciplinary research at the intersection of analytical chemistry, medical diagnostics, and chemical engineering is essential to develop new diagnostic approaches that facilitate the analysis of neoplastic changes in the brain. One of many promising technologies is solid-phase microextraction (SPME), also known as chemical biopsy. This method allows for the extraction of compounds from biological samples and solid ones such as tumors. However, selecting potential biomarkers is equally important to developing and optimizing appropriate analytical tools. Lipids have recently gained attention for their significant roles in cancer processes. Thus, the applicability of SPME probes in the analysis of brain tumor lipidome was assessed. Chemical biopsy was used in the analysis of brain tumors, revealing that the lipidomic profiles of benign meningiomas significantly differed from those obtained from malignant lesions, such as gliomas. Furthermore, it was proven that sampling using the SPME probe was reliable. Studies focusing on gliomas demonstrated that the lipidome of these brain tumors varied depending on the grade of malignancy and the status of IDH1/2 mutations. Moreover, it was also proven that acylcarnitines, which take part in lipid oxidation, were altered. Their content in neoplastic tissue increased along with a worse clinical prognosis, specifically in lesions with a higher degree of malignancy and in samples without mutations in the IDH1/2 gene. It was also reported that SPME probes could be a helpful method for probing brain during neurosurgical procedures from two brain structures in replicates simultaneously. As a result, extracting a set of metabolites with a wide range of physicochemical properties was possible. Most of them were lipids with interesting patterns in studied structures. However, due to the small cohort of patients and high diversity of samples, a detailed discussion on the biological role and implications to the spatial distribution was not conducted. To sum up, solid-phase microextraction probes were useful in brain tumors lipidomic and acylcarnitine profiling of meningiomas and gliomas, considering malignancy degree and genotype. It has also been observed that chemical biopsy can serve as a valuable tool in in vivo brain research, indicating future directions for studies of brain tumors during neurosurgical procedures.