Abstract

To identify new biomarkers that improve the early diagnosis and lead to possible therapeutic targets in pancreatic carcinoma, we performed aproteomic approach to compare serum protein expression patterns of pancreatic carcinoma patients with that of gastric cancer patients, otherpancreatic disease patients, and healthy volunteers. By two-dimensional gel electrophoresis (2-DE) analyses and mass spectroscopic identification,10 protein spots were found significantly changed in pancreatic carcinoma and 5 proteins including cyclin I, Rab GDP dissociation inhibitor β(GDI2), α-1 antitrypsin precursor, Haptoglobin precursor, and Serotransferrin precursor were successfully identified. The increased levels ofcyclin I and GDI2 found to be associated with pancreatic carcinoma were further confirmed by Western blot analyses in an independent series ofserum samples and/or pancreatic juice samples. Applying immunohistochemistry, we further validated expression of cyclin I and GDI2 inadditional pancreatic carcinomas. These results indicate that cyclin I and GDI2 may be potential molecular targets for pancreatic cancerdiagnostics and therapeutics.

Keywords: Biomarkers; Pancreatic carcinoma; Serum proteomics; Two-dimensional electrophoresis