Analytical metabolomics-based approaches to pancreatic cancer

• Urgent need to identify new biomarkers for early diagnosis of pancreatic cancer (PC).
• An impetus for targeted and untargeted metabolomics was recently developed.
• Metabolomics-based analytical technologies have been applied in PC research.
• All identified metabolites with significant changes could be PC biomarkers.
• Metabolome profiling may be related to the pathogenesis of PC.

We provide a comprehensive review of the analytical technologies applied in pancreatic cancer (PC) research, investigating tumor-associated metabolites identified as possible new biomarkers for screening the population at risk and for potential early tumor diagnosis. We briefly introduce PC tumorigenesis, risk factors and some of the benefits of studying changes to the metabolome associated with PC. We focus on the different matrices used in the studies and sample preparation for the analytical methods applied to PC specimens. We then delineate the advantages and the disadvantages of each analytical platform, pointing out the importance of extraction techniques in metabolomics approaches employed in PC research. We cover a number of case studies, and then review identified metabolites associated with PC. In the final section, we discuss possible approaches to understanding the link between metabolic profile and the onset of PC, which may provide insights into the physiopathological mechanisms involved in PC pathogenesis.