Main author: Kristrún Ýr Holm
Institution or Company: Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland; ArcticMass, Reykjavik, Iceland
Co-Authors, Institution or Company:
Finnur Freyr Eiríksson, University of Iceland, ArcticMass. Margrét Þorsteinsdóttir, University of Iceland. Selma Dögg Magnúsdóttir, University of Iceland. Sigríður Klara Böðvarsdóttir, University of Iceland.
Introduction: Breast cancer (BC) is the most common cancer among women in Western societies and the second leading cause of cancer deaths. The x-ray mammography is the most common screening method for early BC detection. Unfortunately, often in the early stages of the BC development the tumor is not visible on these mammographs. The importance to detect and treat BC early is critical in order to increase chances of survival. It is therefore a need for more sensitive diagnostic tool for BC. By using targeted proteomics we hope to identify novel early-stage biomarkers in plasma that can be used as an early diagnostic tool for BC.
Methods: In this study 100 biobank-based plasma samples, thereof 50 from BC cases and 50 controls, from a well-defined Icelandic BC study cohort were analyzed using MRM proteomics PeptiQuantTM 125-protein human plasma assay kit with UPLC-MRM-MS analysis. Prior to analysis the plasma samples were proteolytically cleaved with trypsin and were concentrated by solid-phase extraction. Data analysis was conducted using Skyline Quantitative Analysis software and R.
Results: The MRM assay was successfully implemented for quantification of 125 proteins in human plasma. Quantification of 112 proteins were successful in all the plasma samples with acceptable precision and accuracy. Preliminary data suggest that few proteins are up- or downregulated in the plasma samples from the cases compared to controls.
Conclusions: The preliminary results indicate a difference in protein concentrations between cases and controls, however this difference was not significant. This insignificance might potentially be due to small study cohort size.
