Metabolomics in cancer and cancer-associated inflammatory cells

Abstract

Metabolomics is the last frontier of modern molecular biology, and the state-of-the-art technique for studying metabolism. Mass spectrometry and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy are the main analytical approaches in metabolomics. Cellular metabolism plays a pivotal role during cell resting and activation. Immune cells exhibit remarkable metabolic plasticity, fundamental to support their adaptation to inflammatory environments and functional requirements. Cancer is a metabolic and inflammatory disease. A metabolic shift is crucial for oncogenesis, tumor cell survival, invasion, metastasis, and the associated inflammatory process. The tumor microenvironment is mainly orchestrated by immune-inflammatory cells and essential for the neoplastic process. Inflammatory cells from tumor stroma adapt to different metabolic pathways during tumor progression, and this metabolic reprogramming affects macrophages, neutrophils, T cells, and others. Targeting the metabolism of tumor and immune cells may lead to important therapeutic implications in cancer. Thus, understanding the metabolic changes that drive the interactions between tumor and stromal cells is a promising avenue advances in cancer diagnostics and therapies, leading to more accurate guidance. In this review, we discuss the most recent metabolomics approaches in cancer studies on the tumor-associated inflammatory microenvironment.