Developing Multiple Media Approach to Investigate Reproducible Characteristic VOCs of Lung Cancer Cells

Cellular volatile organic compound (VOC) detection is crucial for studying lung cancer biomarkers. However, the reported VOC biomarkers from the same cell line seem to be inconsistent across different research groups. It is possibly related to the variation in culture media, and the result obtained by a conventional single medium approach (SMA) depends on what medium is used in the cell experiment. This study proposes a multiple media approach (MMA) to investigate reproducible characteristic VOCs of lung cancer cells. Using solid-phase microextraction–gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (SPME-GC-MS) in combination with untargeted analysis, we conducted two independently repetitive experiments to compare lung cancer cells (A549) and normal lung cells (BEAS-2B) under three culture media conditions (RPMI 1640, DMEM, and Ham’s F12). Both experiments indicated that, compared with 62–96 VOCs obtained by the SMA, only two VOCs (3-methyl-1-butanol and 2-methyl-1-butanol) were reproducibly achieved by the MMA. Moreover, their concentrations were significantly lower in lung cancer cells than in normal cells. Further targeted analysis confirmed the downregulation trend of both VOCs in subcutaneous and primary tumor tissues from the lung cancer model mouse. The present work demonstrated that the MMA cell experiment, just like the multicenter trials for cell lines, can facilitate the discovery of reproducible characteristic VOCs. This provides a cellular experimental basis and scientific evidence for lung cancer biomarker investigation and even breath biopsy technique development.