OBJECTIVETo study metabonomic changes in plasma of tumor patients of phlegm-stasis syndrome by Chinese medicine and their in vivo metabolic mechanism.

METHODS1H nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) based metabonomic analysis was performed on plasma samples from 356 tumor patients of the phlegm-stasis syndrome and 104 tumor patients of the non-phlegm-stasis syndrome, and 50 healthy subjects. The spectrogram integral results were analyzed by orthogonal partial least-squares discriminant analysis (OPLS-DA).

RESULTSCompared with healthy subjects, various amino acids including leucine, alanine, citrulline, tyrosine, histidine, arginine, methionine, isoleucine, valine, acetylcysteine, etc. in the plasma of patients of the phlegm-stasis syndrome were significantly lowered (P <0.05). Glucose, glycoprotein, glutamine, myo-inositol, lactic acid, choline, creatine also significantly decreased (P<0.05). But the plasma formic acid, acetone, acetic acid, acetoacetate, pyruvate, beta-hydroxy butyrate, carnitine, malonic acid, and unsaturated fatty acid, very low density lipoprotein cholesterol (VLDL-C), low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) increased in tumor patients of the phlegm-stasis syndrome. Compared with tumor patients of non-phlegm-stasis syndrome, patients of the phlegm-stasis syndrome had obvious lower plasma contents of leucine, alanine, citrulline, tyrosine, histidine, soleucine, valine, glutamine, myo-inositol, scyllo-inositol, lactic acid, creatine (P <0. 05), higher plasma contents of acetone, acetoacetate, unsaturated fatty acid, VLDL-C, alpha-glucose, beta-glucose, glycoprotein, and so on (P <0. 05).

CONCLUSIONSTumor patients of the phlegm-stasis syndrome had strengthened in vivo fat metabolism and lowered various amino acids. The decreased antioxidation capacities resulted in aggravated cell membrane injuries. The in vivo metabolic disorder was more severe in tumor patients of the phlegm-stasis syndrome than in tumor patients of the non-phlegm-stasis syndrome.