A pilot investigation on serum protein fingerprinting of nasopharyngeal carcinoma

Objective To establish a preliminary foundation for developing a serum proteomics diagnostic model of nasopharyngeal carcinoma （NPC） by comparing the differences in serum protein fingerprints between patients with NPC and healthy subjects and between different types of NPC. Methods The serum samples of 41 patients with different types of NPC and 20 healthy subjects were collected. Surface-enhanced laser desorption ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry （SELDI-TOF-MS）were used to detect the blood samples to obtain serum protein mass spectrum, i. e. serum protein fingerprinting. Biomarker Wizard and Biomarker Patterns system software were used to compare the differences in serum protein mass spectrum between NPC patients and healthy subjects and between different types of NPC, and to screen out the NPC-related serum proteins. Results Compared with the healthy control, NPC patients emerged 9 very prominent protein peaks（P 0.05）. Conclusions The serum marker proteins and specific protein fingerprints of NPC can be screened out by SELD1-TOF-MS, which could be used to develop a serum proteomics model for clinical screening and early diagnosis of NPC. Key words: Nasopharyngeal neoplasms; Proteome; Tumor markers, biological; Spectrometry, mass, matrix-assisted laser desorption-ionization