Plasma metabolites in childhood Burkitt lymphoma cases and cancer-free controls in Uganda

TL;DR

This study identifies specific plasma metabolites that differ between children with Burkitt lymphoma and healthy controls in Uganda, suggesting potential biomarkers for diagnosis.

Contribution

The study is the first to characterize plasma metabolomic profiles in childhood Burkitt lymphoma cases in Uganda.

Findings

42 plasma metabolites showed significantly different levels in Burkitt lymphoma cases compared to controls (FDR < 0.001).

Two metabolites (triacylglyceride (18:0_38:6) and alpha-aminobutyric acid) effectively discriminated BL cases from controls with high accuracy (AUC = 0.97).

Abstract

Burkitt lymphoma (BL) is an aggressive non-Hodgkin lymphoma associated with Plasmodium falciparum and Epstein-Barr virus, both of which affect metabolic pathways. The metabolomic patterns of BL is unknown.

We measured 627 metabolites in pre-chemotherapy treatment plasma samples from 25 male children (6–11 years) with BL and 25 cancer-free area- and age-frequency-matched male controls from the Epidemiology of Burkitt Lymphoma in East African Children and Minors study in Uganda using liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. Unconditional, age-adjusted logistic regression analysis was used to estimate odds ratios (ORs) and their 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for the BL association with 1-standard deviation increase in the log-metabolite concentration, adjusting for multiple comparisons using false discovery rate (FDR) thresholds and Bonferroni correction.

Compared to controls, levels for 42 metabolite concentrations differed in BL cases (FDR < 0.001), including triacylglyceride (18:0_38:6), alpha-aminobutyric acid (AABA), ceramide (d18:1/20:0), phosphatidylcholine ae C40:6 and phosphatidylcholine C38:6 as the top signals associated with BL (ORs = 6.9 to 14.7, P < 2.4✕10− 4). Two metabolites (triacylglyceride (18:0_38:6) and AABA) selected using stepwise logistic regression discriminated BL cases from controls with an area under the curve of 0.97 (95% CI: 0.94, 1.00).

Our findings warrant further examination of plasma metabolites as potential biomarkers for BL risk/diagnosis.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11306-024-02130-1.

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