There is an ongoing search for potential biomarkers for acute myeloid leukemia (AML) patients using metabolic analysis. However, only few studies to date have focused on bone marrow samples or a specific subtype of AML. In the present study, we used gas chromatography time-of-flight mass spectrometry of plasma and bone marrow supernatants to compare the metabolic characteristics of patients with AML with maturation (AML-M2). This approach identified significantly altered metabolites. We next performed pathway analysis and determined relative mRNA expression by qRT-PCR. Our results show that lysine, methionine and serine were significantly decreased in AML-M2 patients compared with healthy control. Moreover, plasma abundance of lysine was negatively associated with patients' risk stratification. Taurine had higher plasma abundance in AML-M2 patients and plasma level of taurine was positively related with AML-M2 risk status, while the expression level of taurine transporter showed a negative correlation. Receiver operating characteristic curve analysis showed these four metabolites had high diagnostic value with lysine showing the highest sensitivity and specificity. These results suggest that plasma abundances of lysine and taurine may serve as potential metabolic biomarkers for the prognosis of patients with AML-M2.

中文翻译：

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代谢组学分析确定赖氨酸和牛磺酸是AML-M2患者的候选预后生物标志物。

目前正在使用代谢分析来寻找急性髓细胞性白血病（AML）患者的潜在生物标志物。但是，迄今为止只有很少的研究集中在骨髓样本或AML的特定亚型上。在本研究中，我们使用血浆和骨髓上清液的气相色谱飞行时间质谱法来比较具有成熟（AML-M2）的AML患者的代谢特征。该方法确定了代谢物的显着改变。接下来，我们进行了途径分析，并通过qRT-PCR确定了相对mRNA表达。我们的结果表明，与健康对照组相比，AML-M2患者的赖氨酸，蛋氨酸和丝氨酸显着降低。此外，赖氨酸的血浆丰度与患者的风险分层呈负相关。牛磺酸在AML-M2患者中具有较高的血浆丰度，而牛磺酸的血浆水平与AML-M2风险状态呈正相关，而牛磺酸转运蛋白的表达水平呈负相关。受体工作特征曲线分析表明这四种代谢物具有较高的诊断价值，赖氨酸具有最高的敏感性和特异性。这些结果表明，赖氨酸和牛磺酸的血浆丰度可能是AML-M2患者预后的潜在代谢生物标志物。