Urinary excretion of epidermal-type fatty acid-binding protein and S100A7 protein in patients with cutaneous melanoma.

Epidermal-type fatty acid-binding protein (E-FABP), a protein related to the intracellular trafficking of fatty acids, is expressed in melanocytic tumours but not in normal human melanocytes. E-FABP interacts with S100A7. The presence of these two proteins was investigated in the urine of patients with cutaneous melanoma or other types of cancer, and healthy controls. The first voided morning urine samples of 31 patients with melanoma, 73 patients with other types of cancer and 17 healthy controls were concentrated and submitted to sodium dodecyl sulphate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) immunoblotting for protein detection. In the healthy controls, the incidences of urinary detection of these proteins were higher in females than in males, being 50% (five out of 10) versus 0% (zero out of seven) for E-FABP (P