Metabolomics and Metabolic Profiling in Cancer: NMR, MR, and Mass Spectrometry Approaches

Cancer is, at its core, a disease of dysregulated metabolism. Tumor cells reprogram central carbon, lipid, amino acid, and nucleotide pathways to support rapid proliferation, evade immune surveillance, and survive in nutrient-poor microenvironments. Capturing this metabolic landscape — in tissues, biofluids, or living patients — has emerged as one of the most powerful windows into cancer biology and one of the most promising routes to clinically actionable biomarkers.Two analytical pillars dominate the field. Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy and its in vivo counterpart Magnetic Resonance (MR / MRS) offer non-destructive, highly reproducible, absolutely quantitative readouts of dozens of metabolites in plasma, urine, tissue extracts, or directly in the patient. Mass Spectrometry (MS), in particular LC-MS and GC-MS, delivers unmatched sensitivity and breadth of coverage, capable of detecting thousands of metabolites and lipids at very low concentrations. Together, these platforms are complementary rather than competing, and the most informative cancer studies increasingly integrate them.Despite remarkable progress, key challenges remain: harmonizing protocols across centres, validating candidate biomarkers in independent cohorts, bridging from bench-side discovery to clinical decision-making, and translating multi-platform datasets into interpretable biology and care.This Research Topic invites cutting-edge contributions that advance our understanding of cancer metabolism through NMR, MR, and MS approaches — used singly, in combination, or integrated with imaging, omics, and computational tools. We particularly welcome work that bridges discovery and clinical translation, and that addresses reproducibility, validation, and real-world deployment. We welcome submissions addressing the following sub-topics.o ¹H-NMR plasma, serum, urine, and tissue metabolic fingerprinting for cancer diagnosis, stratification, and prognosiso In vivo MR spectroscopy (MRS, MRSI) and hyperpolarized ¹³C-MR for tumor characterization and treatment response monitoringo LC-MS, GC-MS, and ion-mobility MS-based untargeted and targeted metabolomics and lipidomics in cancero Multi-platform (NMR + MS) integration to maximize coverage and confidence in biomarker discoveryo Spatial metabolomics: MALDI imaging MS and MRSI for resolving tumor heterogeneityo Metabolic profiling of the tumor microenvironment, including stromal–immune–tumor crosstalko Pharmacometabolomics: predicting and monitoring response to chemotherapy, immunotherapy, radiotherapy, and targeted agentso Biomarker validation in independent, multi-center cohorts and progression toward regulatory-grade assayso Workflows, QC standards, and reference materials for clinical-grade cancer metabolomicso Integration of metabolomic data with genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and clinical/imaging variables, including AI- and machine-learning-based analyticsPlease note: Manuscripts consisting solely of bioinformatics or computational re-analysis of public metabolomic, genomic, or transcriptomic databases that are not accompanied by experimental, biological, or independent clinical validation fall outside the scope of this Research Topic. Topic editors: Raj Kumar Sharma, Anil Bhatia, Mohammad Imran Khan Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/78887/metabolomics-and-metabolic-profiling-in-cancer-nmr-mr-and-mass-spectrometry-approaches