Pan-cancer analysis of tumor metabolic landscape associated with genomic alterations

Abstract

Although metabolic alterations are one of the hallmarks of cancer, there is a lack of understanding of how metabolic landscape is reconstituted according to cancer progression and which genetic alterations underlie its heterogeneity within cancer cells. Here, the configuration of the metabolic landscape according to genetic alteration is examined across 7648 subjects representing 29 cancers. The metabolic landscape and its reconfiguration according to the accumulated mutation maintained characteristics of their tissue of origin. However, there were some common patterns across cancers in terms of the association with cancer progression. Carbohydrate and pyrimidine metabolism showed the highest positive correlation with tumor metabolic burden and they were also common poor prognostic pathways in several cancer types. We additionally examined whether genetic alterations associated with the heterogeneity of metabolic landscape. Genetic alterations associated with each metabolic pathway differed between cancers, however, they were a part of cancer drivers in most cancer types.