Metabolomics Analysis for Defining Serum Biochemical Markers in Colorectal Cancer Patients with Qi Deficiency Syndrome or Yin Deficiency Syndrome

Colorectal cancer is one of the leading causes of tumor-associated death, and traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) classifies colorectal cancer into various subtypes mainly according to the symptomatic pattern identification (ZHENG). Here, we investigated the difference in metabolic profiles of serum by comparing colorectal cancer subjects with Nondeficiency (ND), Qi deficiency (QD), and Yin deficiency (YD). The ratio of subjects with carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) was higher in YD pattern, and the ratio of subjects with carbohydrate antigen 19-9 (CA19-9) was higher both in YD and in QD, compared with ND. As a result of metabolomics analysis, twenty-five metabolites displayed differences between QD and ND, while twenty-eight metabolites displayed differences between YD and ND. The downregulated metabolites in QD/ND and YD/ND mainly include carbohydrates and the upregulated metabolites mainly include amino acids and fatty acids, suggesting conversion obstruction of carbohydrates, fatty acids, and amino acids occurs in patients with QD and YD compared with ND. Our results demonstrate that colorectal cancer patients with QD or YD were associated with metabolic disorders and the variations of serum metabolic profiles may serve as potential biochemical markers for diagnosis and prognosis of colorectal cancer patients displayed QD or YD patterns.