The identification of noninvasive
biomarkers able to detect
renal cell carcinoma (RCC) at an early stage remains an unmet clinical need. The recognition that altered metabolism is a core hallmark of
cancer boosted metabolomic studies focused in the search for
cancer biomarkers. The present work aims to evaluate the performance of the volatile metabolites present in the extracellular medium to discriminate RCC cell lines with distinct histological subtypes (clear cell and papillary) and metastatic potential from non-tumorigenic renal cells. Hence,
volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and volatile carbonyl compounds (VCCs) were extracted by headspace solid-phase microextraction (HS-
SPME) and analyzed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). Multivariate and univariate analysis unveiled a panel of metabolites responsible for the separation between groups, mostly belonging to
ketones,
alcohols,
alkanes and
aldehydes classes. Some metabolites were found similarly altered for all RCC cell lines compared to non-tumorigenic cells, namely
2-ethylhexanol,
tetradecane,
formaldehyde,
acetone (increased) and
cyclohexanone and
acetaldehyde (decreased). Furthermore, significantly altered levels of
cyclohexanol,
decanal,
decane,
dodecane and
4-methylbenzaldehyde were observed in all metastatic RCC cell lines when compared with the non-metastatic ones. Moreover, some alterations in the volatile composition were also observed between RCC histological subtypes. Overall, our results demonstrate the potential of volatile profiling for identification of noninvasive candidate
biomarkers for early RCC diagnosis.