Similar Source of Differential Blood mRNAs in Lung Cancer and Pulmonary Inflammatory Diseases: Calls for Improved Strategy for Identifying Cancer-Specific Biomarkers

Guan, Hong; Chen, Beibei; Li, Hongdong; Zhang, Wenjing; Zheng, Tingting; Li, Shan; Shi, Tao; Ao, Lu; Guo, Zheng

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0108104

Cited by 3 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 37 publications

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“…Hong et al suggested that the selection of candidate blood-based mRNA biomarkers for distinguishing cancer from inflammation-associated diseases may yield misleading results, [19] meaning that many serologic tumor markers were affected by inflammation in peripheral blood. Our study further explored the diagnostic capacity of AFP to WBC ratio, which was the worst for the prediction of HCC.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Alpha-fetoprotein to transaminase ratio is related to higher diagnostic efficacy for hepatocellular carcinoma

Liu

Meng

et al. 2019

Medicine

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Alpha-fetoprotein (AFP), as the most widely used biomarker of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), was correlated with ongoing liver damage. The aim of this study was to evaluate the ability of inflammatory correction-based AFP to identify HCC from other liver diseases.From March 2012 to March 2017, among 926 participants, a total of 501 patients whose transaminases were higher than the upper limit of normal range, including 166 treatment-naïve HCC patients were enrolled in our retrospective study. The liver function, white blood cell (WBC) count and serum AFP level of all patients were collected at the initial stage of admission. The area under the receiver-operating curve (AUROC) of AFP, AFP/(Aspartate aminotransferase∗Alanine aminotransferase) [AFP/(AST∗ALT)] and AFP/WBC were compared between the HCC group and the control groups for the quantifying diagnostic efficacy.AUROCs of our novel index AFP/(AST∗ALT) were up to 0.853 (95% confidence interval, CI 0.818–0.887, P < .001) and 0.825 (95% CI 0.782–0.868, P < .001), respectively, when differentiating HCC from non-HCC patients and from cirrhosis patients, which was superior to AFP and AFP/WBC. Diagnostic performance of AFP/(AST∗ALT) could be verified in hepatitis B virus (HBV)- or hepatitis C virus (HCV)-associated HCC patients as well. What's more, AFP/(AST∗ALT) had a significant positive and moderate correlation with tumor diameter and presence of cancerous emboli or not (Spearman correlation coefficients were 0.323 and 0.305, respectively; both P < .001). For predicting HCC, the optimal cut-off value of AFP/(AST∗ALT) is 1.603, and the sensitivity and specificity were 82.8% and 72.7%, respectively, which were significantly higher than the AFP and AFP/WBC.The serum AFP levels based on correction of liver inflammation can effectively improve the diagnostic performance of HCC, providing a new indicator that is simple, economical and pervasive for clinic.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Alpha-fetoprotein to transaminase ratio is related to higher diagnostic efficacy for hepatocellular carcinoma

Liu

Meng

et al. 2019

Medicine

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Integration of miRNA expression analysis of purified leukocytes and whole blood reveals blood-borne candidate biomarkers for lung cancer

Hong,

Huo,

Gao

et al. 2024

Epigenetics

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A simple way to detect disease-associated cellular molecular alterations from mixed-cell blood samples

Guan

et al. 2017

Briefings in Bioinformatics

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Blood is a promising surrogate for solid tissue to investigate disease-associated molecular biomarkers. However, proportion changes of the constituent cells in the often-used peripheral whole blood (PWB) or peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMC) samples may influence the detection of cell-specific alterations under disease states. We propose a simple method, Ref-REO, to detect molecular alterations in leukocytes using the mixed-cell blood samples. The method is based on the predetermined within-sample relative expression orderings (REOs) of genes in purified leukocytes of healthy people. Both the simulated and real mixed-cell blood gene expression profiles were used to evaluate the method. Approximately 99% of the differentially expressed genes (DEGs) detected by Ref-REO in the simulated mixed-cell data are owing to the transcriptional alterations in leukocytes rather than the proportion changes of leukocytes. For the real mixed-cell data, the DEGs detected by Ref-REO in the PBMCs expression data for systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) patients overlap significantly with the DEGs detected in the expression data of SLE CD4 + T cells and B cells and they are mainly enriched with mRNA editing and interferon-associated genes. The detected DEGs in the PWB data for lung carcinoma patients are significantly enriched with coagulation-associated functional categories that are closely associated with cancer progression. In conclusion, the proposed method is capable of detecting the disease-associated leukocyte-specific molecular alterations, using mixed-cell blood samples, which provides simple, transferable and easy-to-use candidates for disease biomarkers.

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Similar Source of Differential Blood mRNAs in Lung Cancer and Pulmonary Inflammatory Diseases: Calls for Improved Strategy for Identifying Cancer-Specific Biomarkers

Cited by 3 publications

References 37 publications

Alpha-fetoprotein to transaminase ratio is related to higher diagnostic efficacy for hepatocellular carcinoma

Alpha-fetoprotein to transaminase ratio is related to higher diagnostic efficacy for hepatocellular carcinoma

Integration of miRNA expression analysis of purified leukocytes and whole blood reveals blood-borne candidate biomarkers for lung cancer

A simple way to detect disease-associated cellular molecular alterations from mixed-cell blood samples

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