Purpose
The aim of this pilot study was to conduct a nontargeted exploratory proteomics profiling analysis on sera obtained from patients diagnosed with diffuse large B‐cell lymphoma (DLBCL) with the goal of identifying disease‐specific biomarkers.
Experimental design
Sera from 87 participants (57 chemotherapy‐naïve diffuse DLBCL patients, 30 controls frequency‐matched by age group and World Health Organization (WHO) BMI categories) that were part of a large San Francisco Bay Area case‐control study of non‐Hodgkin lymphoma were analyzed by liquid chromatography combined with tandem mass spectrometry.
Results
Thirty‐five proteins (p‐adjusted <0.05) were identified as differentially abundant between the DLBCL patients at various disease stages as compared to the controls. Of these, five proteins were randomly selected for further confirmation by ELISA: adiponectin (AdipoQ), cluster of differentiation 14 (CD14), heparin sulfate proteoglycan core protein (HSPG2), extracellular matrix 1 (ECM1), and alpha‐1‐antichymotrypsin (ACT). These proteins were statistically significantly elevated by 68.8, 37.0, 61.6, 68.0, and 32.0%, respectively, in DLBCL patient sera as compared to controls.
Conclusion and clinical relevance
These preliminary data when combined with other cancer‐related data regarding these proteins warrant continued research in clinical and large prospective studies to clarify the role for these biomarkers in DLBCL pathogenesis and/or prognosis.