Targeted proteomic approach in prostatic tissue: a panel of potential biomarkers for cancer detection

Prostate cancer (PCa) is the sixth highest causes of cancer-related deaths in men. The molecular events underlying its behavior and evolution are not completely understood. Prostate-specific antigen (PSA) is the only approved Food and Drug Administration biomarker. A panel of ten stage-specific tumoral and adjacent non tumoral tissues from patients affected by PCa (Gleason score 6, 3+3; PSA 10 ÷19 ng/ml) was investigated by MS-based proteomics approach. The proposed method was based on identifying the base-soluble proteins from tissue, established an efficient study, which lead to a deeper molecular perspective understanding of the PCa. A total of 164 proteins were found and 132 of these were evaluated differentially expressed in tumoral tissues. The Ingenuity Pathway Analysis (IPA) showed that among all dataset obtained, 105 molecules were involved in epithelial neoplasia with a p-value of 3.62E-05, whereas, only 11 molecules detected were ascribed to sentinel tissue and bodily fluids.