Characterization of new serum biomarkers in breast cancer using lipid microarrays

Abstract

Breast cancer is the most common form of cancer among women. Compared with other serum polypeptides, autoantibodies have many appealing features as biomarkers including sensitivity, stability, and easy detection. Anti-lipid autoantibodies are routinely used in the diagnosis of autoimmune diseases, but their potential for cancer diagnosis has not been explored. Dysregulation of cellular signaling in cancer cells would be expected to lead to irregular metabolism of many lipids, which could be sensed by the immune system and cause the production of autoantibodies. Discovery of anti-lipid antibodies could be used as biomarkers for early breast cancer diagnosis. We describe here a more sensitive and accurate method for lipid microarray detection using dual fluorescent labeling, and used it to examine global anti-lipid profiles in the MMTV-Neu transgenic breast cancer model. We conclude that, at the current technology, lipid microarray is not a preferred method for anti-lipid antibody detection in breast cancer animal models. Our result will help the future application of lipid microarrays in identifying anti-lipid autoantibodies in breast cancer and other human diseases.

Circulating Phospholipids as Biomarkers of Breast Cancer: A Review

“…35,[47][48][49] Some studies have found specific changes in choline metabolism that were linked to more aggressive carcinomas. 50,51 It has been proposed that the altered cellular lipid structure is associated with altered cellular functions, such as protein trafficking, which promotes the onset of cancer or contributes to the progression of the disease. [52][53][54] Measuring phospholipids using mass spectrometry.…”

Identification of Serum Biomarkers for Systemic Lupus Erythematosus Using a Library of Phage Displayed Random Peptides and Deep Sequencing

“…Our study is unique compared with previous studies on the discovery of SLE biomarkers. Traditionally, researchers have applied microarrays of whole antigen (protein or lipid) to char-acterize the sera of autoimmune diseases (21,(25)(26)(27)(28). However, these arrays are limited in that they only contain known autoantigens.…”

Breast cancer genomics: normal tissue and cancer markers

“…Another important criterion is the number of analytes used in a study. In most cases these will be proteins, but lipids, [25][26][27] circulating tumor cells, 28,29 autoantibodies, 25,[30][31][32][33] and microRNAs 21,34,35 have been reported as well. The larger the number of analytes in a study, the larger the sample needed to compensate for multiple comparisons and to minimize false discovery.…”