Response to letter to editor re 'Differential protein expression in serum of abdominal aortic aneurysm patients - A proteomic approach'

摘要

We would like to thank Dr. Nordon for his interest in and remarks on our manuscript. We fully agree that the translation of proteomics-discovered biomarkers into clinically meaningful assays is difficult. However, our aim was to find differential protein expression related to aneurysm size and progression. These differentially expressed proteins could help to elucidate the mechanisms behind abdominal aortic aneurysm.Furthermore, standardization of sample collection and processing procedures is crucial, since they can have a dramatic effect on quality and reproducibility of the obtained results. To obtain comparable and reproducible results, we collected, processed and stored all our samples in a highly standardized way. Indeed, it is known that age, sex and several other factors can influence the protein expression pattern in serum. Therefore, we used linear regression to control for possible bias due to age, sex and peripheral arterial disease (PAD) and our found associations remained significant.