title: The endothelial lipase protein is promising urinary biomarker for diagnosis of gastric cancer.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Gastric cancer is one of the most common malignant tumors in the world. Finding effective diagnostic biomarkers in urine or serum would represent the most ideal solution to detecting gastric cancer during annual physical examination. This study was to evaluate the potential of endothelial lipase (EL) as a urinary biomarker for diagnosis of gastric cancer.
  
  
  METHODS
  The expression levels of EL was measured using Western blotting and immunohistochemical staining experiments on (tissue, serum, and urine) samples of gastric cancer patients versus healthy people. We also checked the EL levels in the urine samples of other cancer types (lung, colon and rectum cancers) and benign lesions (gastritis and gastric leiomyoma) to check if EL was specific to gastric cancer.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We observed a clear separation between the EL expression levels in the urine samples of 90 gastric cancer patients and of 57 healthy volunteers. It was approximately 9.9 fold average decrease of the EL expression levels in the urine samples of gastric cancer compared to the healthy controls (P <0.0001), achieving a 0.967 AUC value for the ROC (receiver operating characteristic) curve, demonstrating it's highly accurate as a diagnostic marker for gastric cancer. Interestingly, the expression levels of EL in tissue and serum samples were not nearly as discriminative as in urine samples (P = 0.90 and P = 0.79). In immunohistochemical experiments, positive expression of the EL protein was found in 67% (8/12) of gastric adjacent noncancerous and in 58% (7/12) of gastric cancer samples. There was no significant statistical in the expression levels of this protein between the gastric cancer and the matching noncancerous tissues (P =0.67).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The urinary EL as a highly accurate gastric cancer biomarker that is potentially applicable to the general screening with high sensitivity and specificity.
  The virtual slide(s) for this article can be found here: http://www.diagnosticpathology.diagnomx.eu/vs/4527331618757552.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathogeny Biology, Norman Bethune Medical College of Jilin University, Changchun, Jilin, China.
authors.forename: Xueyan
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Dong
authors.forename: Guoqing
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Guoqing
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Zhaohui
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Ni
authors.forename: Jian
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Suo
authors.forename: Juan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Cui
authors.forename: Ai
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Cui
authors.forename: Qing
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: Ying
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.forename: Fan
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Li
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D019540:Area Under Curve; D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor / Q000097:blood / Q000652:urine*; D015153:Blotting, Western; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D016009:Chi-Square Distribution; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007150:Immunohistochemistry; D008049:Lipase / Q000097:blood / Q000652:urine*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D060787:Neoplasm Grading; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D012372:ROC Curve; D013274:Stomach Neoplasms / Q000097:blood / Q000201:enzymology* / Q000473:pathology / Q000652:urine
chemical_list: D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor; C410382:LIPG protein, human; D008049:Lipase