Breast cancer diagnosis by analysis of serum N-glycans using MALDI-TOF mass spectroscopy.

Blood and serum N-glycans can be used as markers for cancer diagnosis, as alterations in protein glycosylation are associated with cancer pathogenesis and progression. We aimed to develop a platform for breast cancer (BrC) diagnosis based on serum N-glycan profiles using MALDI-TOF mass spectroscopy. Serum N-glycans from BrC patients and healthy volunteers were evaluated using NosQuest's software "NosIDsys." BrC-associated "NosID" N-glycan biomarkers were selected based on abundance and NosIDsys analysis, and their diagnostic potential was determined using NosIDsys and receiver operating characteristic curves. Results showed an efficient pattern recognition of invasive ductal carcinoma patients, with very high diagnostic performance [area under the curve (AUC): 0.93 and 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.917-0.947]. We achieved effective stage-specific differentiation of BrC patients from healthy controls with 82.3% specificity, 84.1% sensitivity, and 82.8% accuracy for stage 1 BrC and recognized hormone receptor-2 and lymph node invasion subtypes based on N-glycan profiles. Our novel technique supplements conventional diagnostic strategies for BrC detection and can be developed as an independent platform for BrC screening.

Déclaration de conflit d'intérêts

Author HP is employed to Nosvet Inc. and authors SB, KL and DCK are employed to NosQuest Inc. Nosvet and NosQuest are both corporate affiliates of ASTA Inc. There are no patents, products in development or marketed products associated with this research to declare. This does not alter our adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials. The other authors have declared that no other competing interests exist.