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The serum metabolome serves as a diagnostic biomarker and discriminates patients with melanoma from healthy individuals

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: Melanoma is a deadly cancer with increasing incidence and mortality rates, and biomarkers for diagnosis are urgently needed. The impact of the microbiome, genetic factors, and immunologic markers on disease outcomes is described, but a comprehensive serum metabolome profiling is missing. The serum metabolome of patients with melanoma might be valuable to identify potential biomarkers. We present an untargeted metabolomics analysis in an exploratory cohort (87 patients with melanoma), an independent validation cohort (37 additional patients with melanoma featuring late-stage tumors), and 18 healthy control individuals, revealing striking differences. We identify and validate six serum metabolites that can predict the diagnosis of melanoma with an area under the curve (AUC) >0.9544 in advanced-stage melanoma. The AUC of our lead biomarker, muramic acid, is 0.964, 0.908, and 0.9936 in patients with stage I ( n = 22), stage II ( n = 67), and advanced melanoma ( n = 86), respectively. In summary, we identify potentially very powerful diagnostic biomarkers for clinical practice. • The serum metabolome differs between patients with melanoma and healthy individuals • Six serum metabolites can predict the diagnosis of melanoma • Muramic acid is a particularly powerful diagnostic biomarker across melanoma stages Morsy et al. present an untargeted metabolomics analysis of patients with melanoma, revealing a distinct metabolome composition compared to healthy control individuals. Six specific serum metabolites can accurately diagnose melanoma in a clinical setting. Particularly, the lead biomarker muramic acid represents a very promising accuracy across all melanoma stages.

Source: Cell Reports Medicine

DOI: 10.1016/j.xcrm.2025.102283