The Comparative Analysis of Serum Proteomes for the Discovery of Biomarkers for Acute Myeloid Leukemia.

Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) develops as the consequence of a series of genetic changes in a hematopoietic precursor cell. However, the definitive diagnostic protein-biomarkers for AML are still unclear, and monitoring these markers has not yet been completely achieved. In our study, to identify the biomarkers for an initial diagnosis, detection of relapse and monitoring the minimal residual disease in acute myeloid leukemia (AML) by a lesser invasive method, serum proteins reflecting alteration in their proteomes were analyzed. We compared two-dimensional electrophoresis patterns of human sera of twelve patients with acute myeloid leukemia with that of normal twelve subjects. The differentially expressed spots were identified by matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization-time-of flight (MALDI-TOF) and electrospray ionization quadupole time of flight (ESI-Q-TOF) mass spectrometry. Eight proteins that expressed differentially in AML group were found. The expression levels of alpha-2-HS-glycoprotein, complement-associated protein SP-40,40, RBP4 gene product, lipoprotein C-III and an unknown protein were down-regulated in serum of AML patients, whereas the other three proteins including immunoglobulin heavy chain variant, proteosome 26S ATPase subunit 1 and haptoglobin-1 up-regulated. These results suggest that these proteins can be used as less invasive diagnostic and monitoring biomarkers of AML if further studies were done.