Identification of serum biomarkers for diagnosing stage I lung adenocarcinoma by MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry

Objectire To identify specific biomarkers that could improve early diagnsis of lung adenuearcinoma using matrix-assisted laser desorptian/ionization (MALDI) technology. Methods Serum samples were isolated from 17 patients with stage I lung adenuearcinoma and 17 age- and sex-matched healthy controls, and the serum proteomic profiles were obtained by matrix-assistcd laser desorption ionization time of flight (MALDI-TOF) mass spectrometry. Results Compared with healthy control group, two highly expressed potential biomarkers were identified with the relative molecular weights of 6 631.64 Da and 4 964. 21 Da. The two best novel protein peaks were automatically chosen for the system training and the development of the constructed model. The constructed model was then used to test an independent set of masked serum samples from 15 lung adenocarcinoma patients and 22 healthy individuals. The analysis yielded a sensitivity of 93.3 %, and a specificity of 95.5 %. Conclusion These results suggest that MALDI-TOF-MS ProteinChip technology is a quick, convenient, and high-output analyzing method that is capable of selecting several relatively potential biomarkers from the serum of lung adenocarcinoma patients and may have a clinical value in the future, and will provide clues to identifying new serologic btomarkers of lung adenocarcinoma.