title: Identification of a seven glycopeptide signature for malignant pleural mesothelioma in human serum by selected reaction monitoring.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Serum biomarkers can improve diagnosis and treatment of malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM). However, the evaluation of potential new serum biomarker candidates is hampered by a lack of assay technologies for their clinical evaluation. Here we followed a hypothesis-driven targeted proteomics strategy for the identification and clinical evaluation of MPM candidate biomarkers in serum of patient cohorts.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Based on the hypothesis that cell surface exposed glycoproteins are prone to be released from tumor-cells to the circulatory system, we screened the surfaceome of model cell lines for potential MPM candidate biomarkers. Selected Reaction Monitoring (SRM) assay technology allowed for the direct evaluation of the newly identified candidates in serum. Our evaluation of 51 candidate biomarkers in the context of a training and an independent validation set revealed a reproducible glycopeptide signature of MPM in serum which complemented the MPM biomarker mesothelin.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our study shows that SRM assay technology enables the direct clinical evaluation of protein-derived candidate biomarker panels for which clinically reliable ELISA's currently do not exist.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, Institute of Molecular Systems Biology, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zürich, Wolfgang-Pauli Strasse 16, 8093 Zürich, Switzerland. ferdinando.cerciello@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Ferdinando
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Cerciello
authors.forename: Meena
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Choi
authors.forename: Annalisa
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Nicastri
authors.forename: Damaris
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Bausch-Fluck
authors.forename: Annemarie
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ziegler
authors.forename: Olga
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Vitek
authors.forename: Emanuela
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Felley-Bosco
authors.forename: Rolf
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Stahel
authors.forename: Ruedi
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Aebersold
authors.forename: Bernd
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Wollscheid