Background/aims: Colorectal cancer, including colon cancer and rectal cancer, is often diagnosed at an intermediate or late stage with poor prognosis. Hence, there is an urgent need for new biomarkers for the early detection of colorectal cancer. Proteomics in combination with other techniques is rapidly being developed as a potential route in tumor diagnosis.
Methodology: A case-control study was performed on serum proteomics of colorectal cancer in the Chinese population using magnetic beads associated with surface enhanced laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry with gold chips and normal phase 20 chips. By serum protein profiling, peak intensities between colorectal cancer and normal controls were compared, as well as the different clinical stages of colorectal, colon or rectal cancer.
Results: Experiments with NP20 and AU chips showed two protein peaks, m/z=13732-4 and m/z=13912-3, which could discriminate colorectal samples from normal controls. Early- and late-stage colorectal cancer could also be easily distinguished, though the distinction between colon cancer and rectal cancer was less clear.
Conclusions: These results suggest that the use of magnetic beads combined with a surface enhanced laser desorption/ionization protein chip is a promising route for the diagnosis of early colorectal cancer.