Serum Proteome Signature of Radiation Response: Upregulation of Inflammation-Related Factors and Downregulation of Apolipoproteins and Coagulation Factors in Cancer Patients Treated With Radiation Therapy—A Pilot Study

Partial-Body Irradiation in Patients with Prostate Cancer Treated with IMRT Has Little Effect on the Composition of Serum Proteome

“…Noticeably, proteins associated with inflammation and immune response (attractin, apolipoprotein A-II, complement C6, lipopolysaccharide-binding protein, and immunoglobulins) were among those affected by RT. Similar analysis performed in pre-RT and post-RT serum samples collected from patients irradiated due to HNSCC revealed many more proteins (about 100 species, including immunoglobulins and Ig-related proteins) affected by radiation, and a large fraction of them was associated functionally with immunity, acute phase, and inflammation [23]. Additionally, we compared serum levels of C-reactive proteins (CRP) assessed by immunonephelometry in pre-RT and post-RT samples collected in groups of patients treated because of prostate cancer and because of HNSCC.…”

“…There are several reports documenting the effects of partial body irradiation during cancer radiotherapy at the level of the blood proteome [20,23,30,31] and the endogenous serum peptidome [20,21,22]. Such molecular changes observed in the blood of cancer patients apparently reflected the pleiotropic effect of radiation on both tumor target and normal tissues irradiated with lower doses due to characteristics of conformal radiotherapy.…”

“…Molecular changes observed during and upon completion of radiotherapy could be associated with different processes accompanying the treatment, which include tumor regression, toxic effects of radiation, and healing of the acute reactions. In fact, the most abundant groups of serum proteins (and/or their endogenous fragments) whose changed levels were observed in the blood of irradiated humans consisted of factors involved in acute phase, inflammation, innate immunity, and immune response [18,19,20,21,22,23,24,30,31]. These processes are involved not only in the human body response to malignancy, but also play a role in the developing and healing of radiation toxicity [32].…”

“…It is also noteworthy that the exposure of prostate cancer patients to low doses (about 0.2 Gy) during computed tomography performed for RT planning did not reveal any measurable changes when pre-treatment and post-CT/pre-RT samples were compared. Significant differences between IMRT-treated prostate cancer patients and HNSCC patients were detected also when identified serum proteins were quantified in pre-RT and post-RT samples [23]. In both groups of patients, similar dose-volume histograms were assumed during the planning of IMRT.…”

“…Further analysis of IMRT-related effects in a group of patients suffering from head and neck cancer (head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC)) revealed that changes in serum peptidome features were associated with intensity of acute mucosal toxicity and were affected by low-to-medium doses delivered to large volumes of normal tissues [22]. More recently, the multi-protein serum signature of response to partial body irradiation during treatment of HNSCC patients was proposed, which included up-regulation of inflammation-related factors, and down-regulation of apolipoproteins and blood coagulation-related factors [23]. …”