Evaluation of serum AFP-reactive-lentil lectin determined by its mAb in the diagnosis of hepatocellular carcinoma

摘要

AIMS To detect serum concentration of AFP-R-LCA for hepatocellular carcinoma(HCC) and to ascertain the value of this tumor marker in the diagnosis of HCC. METHODS The technique of cell fusion was used for the preparation of anti-human AFP-R-LCA variant mAb. In assays of mAb, two sandwich ELISA method was set up. Using this method, the serum concentraion of AFP-R-LCA was tested from 99 patiens with HCC, 67 with benign liver diseases (BLD), 30 pregnant women and 30 normal controls. RESULTS The threshold value of serum AFP-R-LCA was set to 10 μg/L, tested with reference to normal controls; the concentration of AFP-R-LCA in serum was 1.27 ± 0.6 μg/L and 0 respectively. The results of serum measured showed that serum AFP positive rate was increased from 62.6% by RIE to 86.8% by two site ELISA assay in HCC patients(P < 0.05), while the positive rates were decreased from 19.4% to 1.45% in BLD (P < 0.05) and from 26.7% to 0% in pregnant woman (P < 0.05). The pseudopositivity was only 1.5%, but this two site sandwich ELISA assay had a specifity of 99.0% in the diagnosis HCC. CONCLUSIONS AFP-R-LCA variant has higher affinity and specificity to AFP-R-LCA than the routinely used anti-AFP polyclonal antibody. Anti-human AFP-R-LCA variant mAb two site sandwich ELISA assay has low pseudopositive rate, so it could be used not only for early diagnosis of HCC, but also for the differential daignosis between HCC and BLD. This method has the properties of being simple, accurate and reproducable.