Research Article
An HR-MAS MR Metabolomics Study on Breast Tissues Obtained with Core Needle Biopsy
MuLan Li, Yonghyun Song, Nariya Cho, Jung Min Chang, Hye Ryoung Koo, Ann Yi, Hyeonjin Kim, Sunghyouk Park, Woo Kyung Moon
Published:
DOI:
10.1371/journal.pone.0025563
License:
Li et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.2011
Abstract
BackgroundMuch research has been devoted to the development of new breast cancer diagnostic measures, including those involving high-resolution magic angle spinning (HR-MAS) magnetic resonance (MR) spectroscopic techniques. Previous HR-MAS MR results have been obtained from post-surgery samples, which limits their direct clinical applicability.Methodology/Principal FindingsIn the present study, we performed HR-MAS MR spectroscopic studies on 31 breast tissue samples (13 cancer and 18 non-cancer) obtained by percutaneous core needle biopsy. We showed that cancer and non-cancer samples can be discriminated very well with Orthogonal Projections to Latent Structure-Discriminant Analysis (OPLS-DA) multivariate model on the MR spectra. A subsequent blind test showed 69% sensitivity and 94% specificity in the prediction of the cancer status. A spectral analysis showed that in cancer cells, taurine- and choline-containing compounds are elevated. Our approach, additionally, could predict the progesterone receptor statuses of the cancer patients.Conclusions/SignificanceHR-MAS MR metabolomics on intact breast tissues obtained by core needle biopsy may have a potential to be used as a complement to the current diagnostic and prognostic measures for breast cancers.