Serum Protein Profiles to Identify Head and Neck Cancer

Abstract

Purpose: New and more consistent biomarkers of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) are needed to improve early detection of disease and to monitor successful patient management. The purpose of this study was to determine whether a new proteomic technology could correctly identify protein expression profiles for cancer in patient serum samples.Experimental Design: Surface-enhanced laser desorption/ionization-time of flight-mass spectrometry ProteinChip system was used to screen for differentially expressed proteins in serum from 99 patients with HNSCC and 102 normal controls. Protein peak clustering and classification analyses of the surface-enhanced laser desorption/ionization spectral data were performed using the Biomarker Wizard and Biomarker Patterns software (version 3.0), respectively (Ciphergen Biosystems, Fremont, CA).Results: Several proteins, with masses ranging from 2,778 to 20,800 Da, were differentially expressed between HNSCC and the healthy controls. The serum protein expression profiles were used to develop and train a classification and regression tree algorithm, which reliably achieved a sensitivity of 83.3% and a specificity of 100% in discriminating HNSCC from normal controls.Conclusions: We propose that this technique has potential for the development of a screening test for the detection of HNSCC.

Discrete serum protein signatures discriminate between human retrovirus-associated hematologic and neurologic disease

“…11,15,16 Classification trees were constructed using the training set, and a V-fold cross validation process. Multiple classification trees were generated using this process, and the best performing tree was chosen for further testing using the cross-validation results.…”

“…[9][10][11] The primary advancement that sets SELDI apart from other instrumentation utilized for protein expression profiling is the employment of the ProteinChip, an ionization source surface that has been chemically treated to incorporate an affinity layer, which is otherwise similar to Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption Ionization (MALDI). Previously, we established the utility of SELDI-TOF-MS in disease diagnosis by application to transitional cell carcinoma in bladder.…”

Postoperative serum proteomic profiles may predict metastatic relapse in high-risk primary breast cancer patients receiving adjuvant chemotherapy

“…Consequently, serum may be an appropriate surrogate tissue to investigate since it may share the fingerprint of various physiologic or pathologic processes involving cancer tissue and/or host response (Fung et al, 2005). Coupled to appropriate bioinformatic tools, SELDI-TOF MS was recently shown as a very promising method for probing serum to identify protein patterns and/or biomarkers related to various stages and types of solid tumors (Adam et al, 2002a;Petricoin et al, 2002a, b;Koopmann et al, 2004;Wadsworth et al, 2004;Zhang et al, 2004), which could serve as early diagnostic markers.…”

Head and neck cancer

“…60 Research efforts directed at improving early detection of malignancy have focused on the identification of genetic alterations and tumor biomarkers. Conventional diagnostic techniques, including direct inspection or increasingly sophisticated imaging technology, such as positron emission tomography-computer tomography, are limited in their ability to detect HNSCC at its earliest stages and are ineffective for use as a screening tool in high-risk populations.…”