Nuclear magnetic resonance-based metabolomics and metabolic pathway networks from patient-matched esophageal carcinoma, adjacent noncancerous tissues and urine

Table 2 Potential urine biomarkers for discriminating esophageal cancer patients from healthy controls

Metabolite	Chemicalshift, ppm	Fold difference		AUC (95%CI)	Related metabolic pathways
		EC / HC	P value
Acetoacetate	2.25–2.28	1.55 ↑	< 0.001	0.745 (0.636–0.836)	Fatty acid metabolism, TCA cycle
Glutamate	2.04–2.06	1.22 ↑	0.002	0.702 (0.590–0.798)	Glutaminolysis, TCA cycle
Cis-aconitate	3.40–3.46	1.30 ↑	0.001	0.719 (0.608–0.813)	TCA cycle, glyoxylate and dicarboxylate metabolism
Citrate	2.48–2.54 2.64–2.66	1.27 ↑	0.002	0.643 (0.528–0.746)	TCA cycle
Hippurate	7.51–7.56 7.60–7.65 7.78–7.84	0.45 ↓	0.002	0.702 (0.591–0.799)	Gut microflora metabolism
Ethanola-mine	3.08–3.16	0.86 ↓	0.001	0.723 (0.613–0.817)	Fatty acid metabolism
Glycine	3.54–3.55	0.85 ↓	0.003	0.633 (0.518–0.737)	Amino acid metabolism
Creatinine	3.03–3.06 4.05–4.10	0.95 ↓	< 0.001	0.790 (0.685–0.872)	Urea metabolism, Creatinine metabolism
Taurine	3.26–3.28	0.53 ↓	< 0.001	0.763 (0.655–0.850)	Amino acid metabolism
Glucose	3.73–3.80	0.89 ↓	0.007	0.694 (0.581–0.792)	Glycolysis; TCA cycle

EC: Esophageal cancer; HC: Healthy control; AUC: Area under the curve; TCA: Tricarboxylic acid.