Ultrahigh‐performance liquid chromatography–high‐resolution mass spectrometry‐based plasma metabolomics study of thymoma and thymic hyperplasia

Rationale Thymoma is a rare malignant tumor but it is the most common primary tumor of the anterior mediastinum. The current imaging methods for thymoma screening suffer from false positive rate problems, and thymoma pathogenesis remains elusive. Study of thymoma metabolic characteristics could provide clues for improving the diagnosis and understanding the pathogenesis of thymoma. Methods Metabolic profiling of plasma from thymoma and thymic hyperplasia patients was performed using ultrahigh‐performance liquid chromatography combined with high‐resolution mass spectrometry in both positive and negative ionization modes. After pre‐ and post‐processing, the dataset was divided into three age groups and statistical analysis was performed to select differential metabolites of thymoma. For feature identification, experimental tandem mass spectra were matched to those of databases and available chemical standards, and also manually annotated with plausible chemical structures to ensure high identification confidence. Results A total of 47 differential metabolites were identified in thymoma. Significantly higher levels of histidine, sphinganine 1‐phosphate, lactic acid dimer, phenylacetylglutamine, LPC (18:3) and LPC (16:1), and significantly lower levels of phenylalanine, indole‐3‐propionic acid (IPA), hippuric acid and mesobilirubinogen were associated with thymoma. Tryptophan level in thymoma‐associated myasthenia gravis (TAMG) was significantly lower than that of the MG(−) group. IPA and hippuric acid abundances exhibited increasing trends from indolent to aggressive thymoma. Conclusions Our study revealed aberrant aromatic amino acid metabolism and fatty acid oxidation might be associated with thymoma. The identified unique metabolic characteristics of thymoma may provide valuable information for study of the molecular mechanism of thymoma pathogenesis, and improvement of diagnosis and discovery of new therapeutic strategies for thymoma.