The Autoantibodies against Tumor-Associated Antigens as Potential Blood-Based Biomarkers in Thyroid Neoplasia: Rationales, Opportunities and Challenges

Abstract

The Autoantibodies targeting Tumor-Associated Antigens (TAA-AAbs) emerge as a result of a variety of tumor-related immunogenic stimuli and may be regarded as the eyewitnesses to the anti-tumor immune response. TAA-AAbs may be readily detected in peripheral blood to unveil the presence of a particular TAA-expressing tumor, and a fair number of TAAs eliciting the tumor-associated autoantibody response have been identified. The potential of TAA-AAbs as tumor biomarkers has been extensively studied in many human malignancies with a major influence on public health; however, tumors of the endocrine system, and, in particular, the well-differentiated follicular cell-derived thyroid neoplasms, remain understudied in this context. This review provides a detailed perspective on and legitimate rationales for the potential use of TAA-AAbs in thyroid neoplasia, with particular reference to the already established diagnostic implications of the TAA-AAbs in human cancer, to the windows for improvement and diagnostic niches in the current workup strategies in nodular thyroid disease and differentiated thyroid cancer that TAA-AAbs may successfully occupy, as well as to the proof-of-concept studies demonstrating the usefulness of TAA-AAbs in thyroid oncology, particularly for the pre-surgical discrimination between tumors of different malignant potential in the context of the indeterminate results of the fine-needle aspiration cytology.

Cancer Is Associated with the Emergence of Placenta-Reactive Autoantibodies

“…Among the major functions exerted by AAbs are the discrimination of diseased cells from normal ones and the maintenance of host homeostasis [15]. Cancer is a pathological condition in which the composition of the autoantibody repertoire is changed and, in this regard, monitoring serum AAbs directed against tumor-associated antigens is considered a promising approach for early cancer diagnosis [16]. Deviations in the serum contents of AAbs in different diseases, especially cancers, can be detected much earlier than when the clinical manifestations appear and can be used for the early detection of the disease [17].…”