Serum protein profiling of lung, pancreatic, and colorectal cancers reveals alcohol consumption-mediated disruptions in early-stage cancer detection

Hanjun Lee; Seo Yihl Kim; Dong Wook Kim; Young Soo Park; Jin-Hyeok Hwang; Sukki Cho; Je-Yoel Cho

doi:10.1016/j.heliyon.2022.e12359

Serum protein profiling of lung, pancreatic, and colorectal cancers reveals alcohol consumption-mediated disruptions in early-stage cancer detection

Heliyon. 2022 Dec 15;8(12):e12359. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2022.e12359. eCollection 2022 Dec.

Authors

Hanjun Lee^{1

2

3

4}, Seo Yihl Kim¹, Dong Wook Kim¹, Young Soo Park^{5

6}, Jin-Hyeok Hwang^{5

6}, Sukki Cho^{7

8}, Je-Yoel Cho^{1

9}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Biochemistry, College of Veterinary Medicine, BK 21 PLUS, Seoul National University, Seoul 08826, South Korea.
² Department of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, United States.
³ Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA 02139, United States.
⁴ Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center, Charlestown, MA 02129, United States.
⁵ Department of Internal Medicine, Seoul National University Bundang Hospital, Seongnam 13620, South Korea.
⁶ Department of Internal Medicine, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul 03080, South Korea.
⁷ Department of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, Seoul National University Bundang Hospital, Seongnam 13620, South Korea.
⁸ Department of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul 03080, South Korea.
⁹ Comparative Medicine Research Center, Seoul National University, Seoul 08826, South Korea.

Abstract

While the link between serum proteins and cancer has been studied in an effort to enable early-stage cancer detection, factors that might perturb this link has been poorly understood. To ask this question, we performed serum protein profiling on a prospective cohort of 601 individuals with or without lung, pancreatic, or colorectal cancers and identified ten distinct serum protein signatures with distinct link to the patient metadata. Importantly, we discovered that a positive history of alcohol consumption is a major factor that diminishes the sensitivity of serum protein-mediated liquid biopsy in early-stage malignancies, resulting in a 44% decline in the sensitivity of detecting American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) stage I malignancies. Our data provide evidence that patient lifestyle can affect the sensitivity of liquid biopsy and suggest the potential need for abstinence from alcohol before measurement during serum protein-based cancer screening.

Keywords: Alcohol; Biomarker; Cancer; Colorectal cancer; Lung cancer; Pancreatic cancer; Serum protein.