Identification of phosphatidylcholine and lysophosphatidylcholine as novel biomarkers for cervical cancers in a prospective cohort study

Metabolites are the end products of cellular regulatory processes. Squamous cervical cancer (SCC) can alter the level of certain small molecular metabolite in plasma through modulating gene expression. In this study, we identified two metabolites, phosphatidylcholine (PC) and lysophosphatidylcholine (LPC), which are significantly down- and upregulated in plasma of SCC as compared to uterine fibroid (UF) patients via ultra-performance liquid chromatographic-mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS). In external prospective cohort, our assay has a sensitivity of 93.2 %, a specificity of 91.3 %, and an area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve (AUC) of 0.972. The level of LPC is significantly higher in SCC than in UF patients. An opposite result was observed in PC level. Our findings suggest that the PC and lysoPC could be used as novel biomarkers to facilitate SCC diagnosis.