Analytical Pipeline for Discovery and Verification of Glycoproteins from Plasma-Derived Extracellular Vesicles as Breast Cancer Biomarkers

Anal Chem. 2018 May 15;90(10):6307-6313. doi: 10.1021/acs.analchem.8b01090. Epub 2018 Apr 23.

Abstract

Glycoproteins comprise more than half of current FDA-approved protein cancer markers, but the development of new glycoproteins as disease biomarkers has been stagnant. Here we present a pipeline to develop glycoproteins from extracellular vesicles (EVs) through integrating quantitative glycoproteomics with a novel reverse phase glycoprotein array and then apply it to identify novel biomarkers for breast cancer. EV glycoproteomics show promise in circumventing the problems plaguing current serum/plasma glycoproteomics and allowed us to identify hundreds of glycoproteins that have not been identified in blood. We identified 1,453 unique glycopeptides representing 556 glycoproteins in EVs, among which 20 were verified significantly higher in individual breast cancer patients. We further applied a novel glyco-specific reverse phase protein array to quantify a subset of the candidates. Together, this study demonstrates the great potential of this integrated pipeline for biomarker discovery.

Publication types

  • Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

  • Biomarkers, Tumor / blood*
  • Breast Neoplasms / diagnostic imaging*
  • Chromatography, Liquid
  • Extracellular Vesicles / chemistry*
  • Female
  • Glycoproteins / blood*
  • Humans
  • Tandem Mass Spectrometry

Substances

  • Biomarkers, Tumor
  • Glycoproteins