Advancing Biomarker Research: In Situ Cu Isotope Analysis in Liver Tumors by LA-MC-ICP-MS

Abstract

High Resolution Image Download MS PowerPoint Slide Stable metal isotopes have received increasing attention as medical biomarkers due to their potential to detect changes in metal metabolism related to diseases. In particular, copper stable isotopes are a powerful tool to identify isotopic variation between tumors and healthy tissue, suggesting application in cancer diagnosis. However, potential mechanisms causing isotope fractionation, such as redox- or bond-forming reactions and interactions of metals during transmembrane import and export, are less well understood. Here, we established an in situ method using laser ablation-multicollector-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (LA-MC-ICP-MS) to advance our understanding of the underlying processes responsible for isotope fractionation between normal and diseased tissues. Gelatin-based bracketing standards and quality control reference materials, crucial for laser ablation analysis, were developed to allow correction for instrumentally induced isotope fractionation during LA-MC-ICP-MS analysis. Using such matrix-matched standards, the method achieved intermediate precisions for delta values of better than 0.15 ‰ (2 s ) for inorganic reference materials and of better than 0.17 ‰ (2 s ) for biological reference materials. The developed routine was tested on rabbit VX2 liver tumor samples, a model system resembling human hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) used to study liver cancer. In situ Cu isotope compositions between healthy ( δ NIST 976 65/63 ( Cu ) = −1.5 ‰ to 0.2 ‰) and tumorous ( δ NIST 976 65/63 ( Cu ) = 0.0 ‰ to 1.3 ‰) liver tissue show distinct differences in their isotope ratios. The observed isotopic dichotomy is consistent with previous solution-based MC-ICP-MS work, showing enrichment of heavy 65 Cu in cancer biopsies relative to healthy tissue.

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