A Lipidomics Approach to Determine the Role of Lipids and Its Crosstalk with Autophagy in Lung Cancer Metastasis.

Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is among the most malignant tumors with high propensity for metastasis and is the leading cause of cancer-related death globally. Most patients present with regional and distant metastasis, associated with poor prognosis. Lipids may play an essential role in either activating or inhibiting detachment-induced apoptosis (anoikis), where the latter is a crucial mechanism to prevent metastasis, and it may have a cross-talk with autophagy. Autophagy has been shown to be induced in various human cancer metastasis, modulating tumor cell motility and invasion, cancer cell differentiation, resistance to anoikis, and epithelial to mesenchymal transition. Hence, it may play a crucial role in the transition of benign to malignant phenotypes, the core of metastasis initiation. Here, we provide a method we have established in our laboratory for detecting lipids in attached and detached non-small lung cancer cells and show how to analyze lipidomics data to find its correlation with autophagy-related pathways.