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Updated: Jul 18, 2025
Cell-Free DNA Integrity Analysis in Urine Samples
Published on: January 5, 2017
Plasma proteomic profiling discovers molecular features associated with upper tract urothelial carcinoma
Yuanyuan Qu1, Zhenmei Yao2, Ning Xu2
1Department of Urology, Fudan University Shanghai Cancer Center, State Key Laboratory of Genetic Engineering, Collaborative Innovation Center for Genetics and Development, School of Life Sciences, Institutes of Biomedical Sciences, and Human Phenome Institute, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China; Department of Oncology, Shanghai Medical College, Fudan University, Shanghai Genitourinary Cancer Institute, Shanghai 200032, China.
Abstract:
Upper tract urothelial carcinoma (UTUC) is often diagnosed late and exhibits poor prognosis. Limited data are available on potential non-invasive biomarkers for disease monitoring. Here, we investigate the proteomic profile of plasma in 362 UTUC patients and 239 healthy controls. We present an integrated tissue-plasma proteomic approach to infer the signature proteins for identifying patients with muscle-invasive UTUC. We discover a protein panel that reflects lymph node metastasis, which is of interest in identifying UTUC patients with high risk and poor prognosis. We also identify a ten-protein classifier and establish a progression clock predicting progression-free survival of UTUC patients. Finally, we further validate the signature proteins by parallel reaction monitoring assay in an independent cohort. Collectively, this study portrays the plasma proteomic landscape of a UTUC cohort and provides a valuable resource for further biological and diagnostic research in UTUC.
