Tissue and serum lipidome shows altered lipid composition with diagnostic potential in mycosis fungoides

// Chenchen Xu 1, * , Dan Zhou 2, * , Yixin Luo 1 , Shuai Guo 2 , Tao Wang 1 , Jie Liu 1 , Yuehua Liu 1 and Zhili Li 2 1 Department of Dermatology, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing 100730, China 2 Department of Biophysics and Structural Biology, Institute of Basic Medical Sciences, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing 100005, China * These authors have contributed equally to this work and should be considered co-first authors Correspondence to: Jie Liu, email: Liujie04672@pumch.cn Yuehua Liu, email: yuehualiu@263.net Zhili Li, email: lizhili@ibms.pumc.edu.cn Keywords: cutaneous T cell lymphoma, mycosis fungoides, mass spectrometry imaging, matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization-Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry, lipidomics Received: December 23, 2016     Accepted: May 04, 2017     Published: May 26, 2017 ABSTRACT Mycosis fungoides (MF) is the most common type of cutaneous T cell lymphoma. In this study, we used matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization-Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry (MALDI-FTICR–MS) to perform lipidomic profiling of 5 MF tissue samples and 44 serum samples (22 from MF patients and 22 from control subjects). Multivariate statistical analysis of the mass spectral data showed that MF tissues had altered levels of seven lipids and MF sera had altered levels of twelve. Among these, six phosphotidylcholines, PC (34:2), PC (34:1), PC (36:3), PC (36:2), PC (32:0), and PC (38:4) and one sphingomyelin, SM (16:0) were altered in both MF tissues and sera. PC (34:2), PC (34:1), PC (36:3), and PC (36:2) levels were increased in both tissues and sera from MF patients, whereas SM (16:0), PC (32:0), and PC (38:4) levels were increased in MF sera but were decreased in MF tissues. We have thus identified multiple lipids that are altered in MF tissues and sera. This suggests serological and tissue lipidomic profiling could be an effective approach to screening for diagnostic biomarkers of MF.