Mini-array of multiple tumor-associated antigens (TAAs) in the immunodiagnosis of breast cancer

Sera from patients with cancer contain antibodies which react with a unique group of autologous cellular antigens called tumor-associated antigens (TAAs). This study aimed to determine whether a mini-array of multiple TAAs would enhance antibody detection and be a useful approach in breast cancer detection and diagnosis. The mini-array of multiple TAAs was composed of ten TAAs, including Imp1, p62, Koc, p53, c-myc, survivin, p16, cyclin B1, cyclin D1 and CDK2 full-length recombinant proteins. An enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was used to detect antibodies against these ten TAAs in 41 sera from patients with breast cancer, as well as 82 sera from normal individuals. The antibody frequency of the individual TAAs in breast cancer was variable and ranged between 7.3 and 22.0%. With the successive addition of TAAs to a final total of ten antigens, there was a stepwise increase in positive antibody reactions, reaching a sensitivity of 61.0% and a specificity of 86.6% in breast cancer. The positive and negative likelihood ratios were 5.545 and 0.438, respectively, which showed that the clinical diagnostic value of a parallel assay of eight TAAs was high. The positive and negative predictive values were 73.5 and 82.0%, respectively, indicating that the parallel assay of eight TAAs raised the diagnostic precision significantly. The agreement rate and κ-value were 79.7% and 0.52, respectively, while the Youden's Index (YI) was 0.5, indicating that the observed value of this assay had a middle range coincidence with the actual value. The data from the present study further support our previous hypothesis that the detection of autoantibodies for the diagnosis of certain types of cancer may be enhanced using a mini-array of several TAAs as target antigens. A customized antigen mini-array using a panel of appropriately selected TAAs is able to enhance autoantibody detection in the immunodiagnosis of breast cancer.