The indicative significance of copper and zinc stable isotopes in special life processes: Cancer

doi:10.13745/j.esf.sf.2025.3.35

Abstract

Abstract:

Trace metal elements play crucial roles in biological systems, with their concentrations and distributions being strictly regulated by biological processes and influenced by external environmental factors. Copper and zinc play specific functions in immunoregulation, protein synthesis, and catalytic reactions. Disruptions of these two metals in biological homeostasis can lead to oxidative stress responses, inflammatory damage, and even diseases. The recently-developed isotope approach of these two metals has shown great potential for tracing not only their transformation in various environments, but also during different metabolic processes, as metal stable isotopes primarily fractionate during the changes of redox reactions and ligand binding energies. Therefore, studying the composition, distribution, and balance of metal stable isotopes in various organisms would enhance our understanding of metal homeostasis and related metabolic processes. In this study, copper and zinc isotopes were taken as examples to show the potential of metal stable isotopes for tracing special life processes especially the cancer progression. We first summarized Cu and Zn isotopic compositions in the human body and the relative influence factors such as sex, age, dietary habits, and environmental exposure, and then discussed the imbalance of Cu and Zn isotope homeostasis during cancer progression. Although Cu and Zn isotope ratios in various tissues have been found to be influenced by sex and dietary habits, the significant enrichment of light Cu isotopes in blood and light Zn isotopes in urine of cancer patients compared to the healthy controls during cancer progression highlights the potential of metal stable isotopes in cancer diagnosis and prognosis. In the future, the extended human metal isotope database could help identify the mechanisms of metal isotope fractionation during special metabolic processes such as cancer progression, which would in turn help to explore the potential clinical applications of metal stable isotopes.

Key words: copper, zinc, metal stable isotopes, cancer

CLC Number:

LIU Wenqi, WANG Zhuhong, LIU Yang, MA Ning, CHEN Yan, ZHENG Wang, LIU Hong, CHEN Jiubin. The indicative significance of copper and zinc stable isotopes in special life processes: Cancer[J]. Earth Science Frontiers, 2025, 32(3): 408-424.

Figures/Tables 6

Fig.1 Summary of reported isotope ratio data of copper for tissue samples of healthy humans (data from [38,43,45,66⇓-68,71⇓⇓⇓⇓⇓⇓⇓⇓⇓⇓⇓-83] )

Fig.2 Isotope ratio data of copper in blood of males (a) and females (b) by age(data from [45,67,72⇓-74,76] )

Fig.3 Summary of reported isotope ratio data of zinc for tissue samples of healthy humans (data from [42-43,45,66-67,71-72,75⇓-77,129,132⇓⇓⇓⇓⇓-138])

Fig.4 Isotope ratio data of zinc in blood and urine of males (a) and females (b) by age(data from [42,45,67,72,76,134⇓-136] )

Fig.5 Summary of reported isotope ratio data of copper in body fluids of different cancer patients compared to the healthy control (data from [44⇓-46,73-74,94,158] )

Fig.6 Summary of reported isotope ratio data of zinc in body fluids of different cancer patients compared to the healthy control (data from [41⇓-43,45,134] )

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