Prospective Application of Lipidomics in Prostate Cancer

Abstract

Lipidomics, a rapidly developing research field, has been widely studied in many non-cancer areas, and in some cancers. Taking prostate cancer as an example, this article has concisely reviewed applications of lipidomics in cancer research. Lipidomics is able to identify a few out of thousands individual lipid species in bio-fluids as biomarkers in diagnosis of prostate cancer with high sensitivity, specificity and accuracy. This technology has been also used in studying the pathogenesis of prostate cancer by combining data of lipid profiling with lipid metabolites and pathways strategy. Importantly, lipidomics can provide details of lipid compositions different between prostate cancer and benign prostate, which will greatly help to make strategy in prevention and treatment of prostate cancer.