ABSTRACT
<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To investigate the metabonomic variation between patients with esophageal cancer (EC) and healthy controls, and to analyze the variation between patients with EC.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>H-MR and orthogonal partial least-squares discriminant analysis (OPLS-DA) was performed on 108 plasma specimens from EC patients and 50 health controls, and the metabonomic variation between patients with EC and healthy controls analyzed.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>OPLS-DA analysis might correctly separate all plasma specimens from health controls and patients with EC, leucine (0.0043 +/- 0.0006, 0.0040 +/- 0.0006), alanine (0.0039 +/- 0.0007, 0.0033 +/- 0.0006), isoleucine (0.0067 +/- 0.0010, 0.0063 +/- 0.0009), valine (0.0037 +/- 0.0005, 0.0035 +/- 0.0006), glycoprotein (0.0123 +/- 0.0043, 0.0102 +/- 0.0022), lactate (0.0342 +/- 0.0113, 0.0258 +/- 0.0085), acetone (0.0027 +/- 0.0023, 0.0017 +/- 0.0008), acetate (0.0007 +/- 0.0001, 0.0006 +/- 0.0001), choline (0.0035 +/- 0.0006, 0.0029 +/- 0.0007), isobutyrate (0.0020 +/- 0.0004, 0.0018 +/- 0.0003), unsaturated lipid (0.0072 +/- 0.0013, 0.0059 +/- 0.0018), VLDL (0.1209 +/- 0.0589, 0.0879 +/- 0.0269), LDL (0.0885 +/- 0.0328, 0.0785 +/- 0.0288), 1-methylhistidine (0.0005 +/- 0.0001, 0.0004 +/- 0.0005) decreased in EC patient' s plasma with statistical significance (r total > 0.27, P < 0.05), dimethylamine (0.0004 +/- 0.0001, 0.0005 +/- 0.0001), alpha-glucose (0.0079 +/- 0.0013, 0.0081 +/- 0.0016), 3-glucose (0.0139 +/- 0.0024, 0.0142 +/- 0.0029), citric acid (0.0044 +/- 0.0008, 0.0106 +/- 0.0058) increase in the EC patient's plasma (r total < -0.27, P < 0.05). There were clear variation between Han and Kazak patients, alanine (0.0031 +/- 0.0005,0.0029 +/- 0.0004), glutamine (0.0010 +/- 0.0001, 0.0009 +/- 0.0001), tyrosine (0.0009 +/- 0.0001, 0.0008 +/- 0.0001), 1-methylhistidine (0.0005 +/- 0.0001, 0.0004 +/- 0.0001) increased in the Han patients (r > 0.35, P> 0.05), carnitine (0.0028 +/- 0.0006) was higher in Kazak patients than in Han patients (0.0025 +/- 0.0004), which had statistical significance (r = - 0.40, P < 0.05). Unsaturated lipid (0.0059 +/- 0.0018, 0.0047 +/- 0.0011), isoleucine (0.0062 +/- 0.0011, 0.0058 +/- 0.0007), alanine (0. 0032 +/- 0.0007, 0.0028 +/- 0.0004), glycoprotein (0.0096 +/- 0.0019, 0.0086 +/- 0.0011), glutamine (0.0011 +/- 0.0001, 0.0009 +/- 0.0001), tyrosine (0.0009 +/- 0.0001, 0.0008 +/- 0.0001), 1-methylhistidine (0.0005 +/- 0.0001, 0.0004 +/- 0.0001) were increased in Uygur patients as compared with Kazak patients, having statistical significance (r > 0.33, P < 0.05), carnitine (0.0027 +/- 0.0005) was higher in Kazak patients than in Uygur patients (0.0025 +/- 0.0004) (r = - 0.36, P < 0.05).</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>The results indicate that 1H-MR spectra of plasma analyzed by OPLS-DA statistical methods might completely separate the EC patients from health controls. The metabonomic approach should be helpful in screening of EC patients.</p>