Affiliations: [a] State Environmental Protection Key Lab of Environmental Risk Assessment and Control on Chemical Processes, School of Resources and Environmental Engineering, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai, China | [b] Department of Public Health Sciences, The Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine, Penn State Hershey Medical Center, Hershey, PA, USA | [c] Yantaishan Hospital, Yantai, Shandong, China | [d] Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Penn State Hershey Medical Center, Hershey, PA, USA | [e] Department of Pharmacology, Mass Spectrometry Core Facility, The Pennsylvania State University, PA, USA
Correspondence:
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Corresponding author: Guangli Xiu, State Environmental Protection Key Lab of Environmental Risk Assessment and Control on Chemical Processes, School of Resources and Environmental Engineering, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai, China. Tel.: +86 18019712552; E-mail: xiugl@ecust.edu.cn.
Abstract: BACKGROUND: Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer mortality worldwide. The collection of exhaled breath condensate (EBC) is a non-invasive method that may have enormous potential as a biomarker for the early detection of lung cancer. OBJECTIVE: To investigate the proteomic differences of EBC between lung cancer and CT-detected benign nodule patients, and determine whether these proteins could be potential biomarkers. METHODS: Proteomic analysis was performed on individual samples from 10 lung cancer patients and 10 CT-detected benign nodule patients using data-independent acquisition (DIA) mass spectrometry. RESULTS: A total of 1,254 proteins were identified, and 21 proteins were differentially expressed in the lung adenocarcinoma group compared to the benign nodule group (p< 0.05). The GO analysis showed that most of these proteins were involved in neutrophil-related biological processes, and the KEGG analysis showed these proteins were mostly annotated to pyruvate and propanoate metabolism. Through protein-protein interactions (PPIs) analysis, ME1 and LDHB contributed most to the interaction-network of these proteins. CONCLUSION: Significantly differentially expressed proteins were detected between lung cancer and the CT-detected benign nodule group from EBC samples, and these proteins might serve as potential novel biomarkers of EBC for early lung cancer detection.
