Targeted Microchip Capillary Electrophoresis-Orbitrap Mass Spectrometry Metabolomics to Monitor Ovarian Cancer Progression

The lack of effective screening strategies for high-grade serous carcinoma (HGSC), a subtype of ovarian cancer (OC) responsible for 70-80% of OC related deaths, emphasizes the need for new diagnostic markers and a better understanding of disease pathogenesis. Capillary electrophoresis (CE) coupled with high-resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS) offers high selectivity and sensitivity for ionic compounds, thereby enhancing biomarker discovery. Recent advances in CE-MS include small, chip-based CE systems coupled with nanoelectrospray ionization (nanoESI) to provide rapid, high-resolution analysis of biological specimens. Here, we describe the development of a targeted microchip (µ) CE-HRMS method, with an acquisition time of only 3 min and sample injection volume of 4nL, to analyze 40 target metabolites in serum samples from a triple-mutant (TKO) mouse model of HGSC. Extracted ion electropherograms showed sharp, baseline resolved peak shapes, even for structural isomers such as leucine and isoleucine. All calibration curves of the analytes maintained good linearity with an average R² of 0.994, while detection limits were in the nM range. Thirty metabolites were detected in mouse serum with recoveries ranging from 78 to 120%, indicating minimal ionization suppression and good accuracy. We applied the µCE-HRMS method to biweekly-collected serum samples from TKO and TKO control mice. A time-resolved analysis revealed characteristic temporal trends for amino acids, nucleosides, and amino acid derivatives. These metabolic alterations are indicative of altered nucleotide biosynthesis and amino acid metabolism in HGSC development and progression. A comparison of the µCE-HRMS dataset with non-targeted ultra-high performance liquid chromatography (UHPLC)-MS results showed identical temporal trends for the five metabolites detected with both platforms, indicating the µCE-HRMS method performed satisfactorily in terms of capturing metabolic reprogramming due to HGSC progression while reducing the total data collection time three-fold.