Antibody-Free Quantification of Serum Chromogranin A by Targeted Mass Spectrometry

Chromogranin A (CgA) is a 48 kDa protein that serves as a diagnostically sensitive, but nonspecific, serum biomarker for neuroendocrine tumors. Immunoassays for CgA are not standardized and have a narrow dynamic range, which requires dilution of concentrated specimens. We developed and validated an antibody-free, liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS)-based method for CgA without these limitations.

CgA was extracted from serum using a mixed-mode anion exchange solid-phase extraction plate, digested with trypsin, and analyzed by LC-MS/MS using well-characterized CgA calibration standards. After validation, the mass spectrometry method was compared with the CISBIO immunoassay using 200 serum specimens previously submitted for CgA analysis. Specimens with discordant results were reanalyzed by high-resolution mass spectrometry- (HRMS) -based methods to assess the contribution of truncated and post-translationally modified forms of CgA.

The assay had a linear range of 50 to 50 000 ng/mL, recoveries between 89% and 115%, and intra- and interassay imprecision <10%. LC-MS/MS assay results showed a Pearson's correlation of r = 0.953 with the CISBIO immunoassay, with CgA values being a mean 2- to 4-fold higher. Concordance for CgA between the 2 assays was 80.9% (95% CI 72.8%-89.2%), showing substantial agreement. Truncation and posttranslational modification, including 2 phosphorylation sites that had not been previously observed or predicted to our knowledge, did not appear to contribute directly to discordance between the 2 assays.

Quantification of CgA by LC-MS/MS provides an analytically sensitive and reproducible alternative to commercially available immunoassays.