Rapid Prostate Cancer Noninvasive Biomarker Screening Using Segmented Flow Mass Spectrometry-Based Untargeted Metabolomics

Analytical methods with rapid biomarker detection capacity through untargeted metabolomics are becoming essential in clinical cancer research. Liquid chromatography-high resolution/mass spectrometry (LC-HRMS) is the most widely employed and rapidly developing metabolomic-based biomarker technique due its high sensitivity, reproducibility, and separation efficiency. However, its translation to clinical diagnostics is often limited due to long data acquisition times (~20 min/sample) and laborious sample extraction procedures when employed for large-scale metabolomics studies. Here, we developed a segmented flow approach coupled with high-resolution mass spectrometry (SF-HRMS) for untargeted metabolomics which has the capability to acquire data in less than 1.5 min/sample with similar robustness and reproducibility relative to LC-HRMS. The SF-HRMS results demonstrate the capability for screening metabolite-based urinary biomarkers associated with prostate cancer (PCa). The study shows that SF-HRMS-based global metabolomics has the potential to evolve into a rapid biomarker screening tool for clinical research.