# HCMMD: systematic evaluation of metabolites in body fluids as liquid biopsy biomarker for human cancers

## TL;DR

This paper introduces HCMMD, a database that compiles metabolite biomarkers from body fluids for cancer diagnosis and monitoring.

## Contribution

The paper presents a comprehensive database of cancer-related metabolites and their clinical relevance for liquid biopsy.

## Key findings

- HCMMD includes data from 573,300 samples and 17,083 metabolic biomarkers across multiple cancers.
- The database provides clinical metrics like AUC, sensitivity, and specificity for each metabolite.
- HCMMD supports querying and downloading metabolite data for research and diagnostic purposes.

## Abstract

Metabolomics is a rapidly expanding field in systems biology used to measure alterations of metabolites and identify metabolic biomarkers in response to disease processes. The discovery of metabolic biomarkers can improve early diagnosis, prognostic prediction, and therapeutic intervention for cancers. However, there are currently no databases that provide a comprehensive evaluation of the relationship between metabolites and cancer processes. In this review, we summarize reported metabolites in body fluids across pan-cancers and characterize their clinical applications in liquid biopsy. We conducted a search for metabolic biomarkers using the keywords (“metabolomics” OR “metabolite”) AND “cancer” in PubMed. Of the 22,254 articles retrieved, 792 were deemed potentially relevant for further review. Ultimately, we included data from 573,300 samples and 17,083 metabolic biomarkers. We collected information on cancer types, sample size, the human metabolome database (HMDB) ID, metabolic pathway, area under the curve (AUC), sensitivity and specificity of metabolites, sample source, detection method, and clinical features were collected. Finally, we developed a user-friendly online database, the Human Cancer Metabolic Markers Database (HCMMD), which allows users to query, browse, and download metabolite information. In conclusion, HCMMD provides an important resource to assist researchers in reviewing metabolic biomarkers for diagnosis and progression of cancers.