Application of serum surface-enhanced laser desorption/ionization proteomic patterns in distinguishing lung cancer patients from healthy people

摘要

Screening and early diagnosis of lung cancer relies mainly on chest X-ray, low-dose computed tomography, bronchoscopy, sputum cytology, and measurement of tumor markers such as carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA), cytokeratin-19 fragments (Cyfra21-1), and neuron-specific enolase (NSE). However, all these methods lack adequate sensitivity and/or specificity. Better methods are therefore urgently needed in screening and early diagnosis of lung cancer, and proteomic fingerprinting represents a promising approach. Surface-enhanced laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (SELDI-TOF-MS), an innovative proteomic technology, has overcome many of the limitations of two-dimensional electrophoresis (2D) and matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF-MS). Recently, this technology has been successfully used to distinguish pancreatic, ovarian and prostate cancer patients from healthy control subjects. The aim of the current study was to investigate the application of serum SELDI protein profiling in distinguishing lung cancer patients from healthy persons.