[A new serum biomarker for lung cancer - transthyretin.].
BACKGROUND
Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death worldwide and very few specific biomarkers could be used in clinical diagnosis at present. The aim of this study is to find novel potential serum biomarkers for lung cancer using Surface Enhanced Laser Desorption/Ionization (SELDI) technique.


METHODS
Serum sample of 227 cases including 146 lung cancer, 13 pneumonia, 28 tuberculous pleurisy and 40 normal individuals were analyzed by CM10 chips. The candidate biomarkers were identified by ESI/MS-MS and database searching, and further confirmed by immunoprecipitation. The same sets of serum sample from all groups were re-measured by ELISA assay.


RESULTS
Three protein peaks with the molecular weight 13.78 kDa, 13.90 kDa and 14.07 kDa were found significantly decreased in lung cancer serum compared to the other groups and were all automatically selected as specific biomarkers by Biomarker Wizard software. The candidate biomarkers obtained from 1-D SDS gel bands by matching the molecular weight with peaks on CM10 chips were identified by Mass spectrometry as the native transthyretin (nativeTTR), cysTTR and glutTTR, and the identity was further validated by immunoprecipitation using commercial TTR antibodies. Downregulated of TTR was found in both ELISA and SELDI analysis.


CONCLUSIONS
TTRs acted as the potentially useful biomarkers for lung cancer by SELDI technique.
Liu
Liyun
L
Key Laboratory of Cell Proliferation and Regulation Biology Ministry of Education, Beijing Normal University, Universities Confederated Institute of Proteomics, Beijing 100875, China; State Key Laboratory for Infectious Disease Prevention and Control, National Institute for Communicable Diseases Control and Prevention, China CDC, Beijing 102206, China.
Sun
Suozhu
S
Liu
Jifu
J
Wu
Shanshan
S
Dai
Songwei
S
Wang
Xiaomin
X
Huang
Lingyun
L
Xiao
Xueyuan
X
He
Dacheng
D