Background: Currently, there are only limited number of diagnostic tumor markers for non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The aim of this study is to screen and identify non-small-cell lung cancer associated antigens, by using of cancer sera containing antibodies which react with autologous cellular antigens (tumor-associated antigens TAAs), which can be used in NSCLC early screening or target treatment.
Methods: Two T7 phage display cDNA libraries were panning against the sera from 24 patients with NSCLC. Then the enriched libraries were screened with the pool of sera from NSCLC patients, the positive clones encoding antigenic genes were obtained after screening, and the nucleotide sequences of positive were identified and analyzed with BLAST software in GenBank.
Results: After immunoscreen two T7 phage display cDNA libraries with serum from patients with NSCLC, thirty-one positive clones were obtained and sequence results showed they were derive from 15 genes, 12 of 15 genes were homologous to the genes known in GenBank, such as RHOA, ITGB4, and HNRNPA2/B1 et al . The other three genes expressed sequence tags (ESTs) were not found in GenBank.
Conclusions: Fifteen NSCLC associated antigen genes and three candiated gene were obtained by SEREX from T7 phage display cDNA libraries.