Could sugar patterns in blood serum help distinguish prostate cancer patients?

Details

Researchers compared glycomic profiles from the blood sera of 10 healthy males and 24 prostate cancer patients. They obtained the profiles using MALDI-MS of permethylated N-glycans released from 10-µL sample aliquots. Quantitative permethylation was achieved using solid-phase permethylation.

Principal component analysis revealed significant differences between the two sets of profiles, which formed distinct clusters. The first principal component distinguished the 24 prostate cancer patients from the healthy individuals. Fucosylation of glycan structures was generally higher in cancer samples (ANOVA p = 0.0006).

More than 50 N-glycan structures were identified, and 12 glycan structures differed significantly between the two sample sets; six of the 12 were fucosylated. The differences were confirmed using two independent statistical tests, ANOVA and ROC analyses. Ten of the 12 structures had significantly higher relative intensities in cancer samples, while the other two were less abundant in cancer samples. All 12 were statistically significant, with ANOVA scores below 0.001 and ROC area-under-the-curve values close to 1 or 0.

The researchers proposed these structures as cancer-specific glycans and potential prostate cancer biomarkers. They concluded that serum glycomic profiling warrants further investigation to determine its role in cancer early detection and prognostication.