Abstract P6-01-13: Identification of Protein Biomarkers for Early Detection and Stratification of Triple Negative Breast Cancer

Abstract

Abstract Breast cancer (BC) is the most frequent malignancy in women worldwide. Breast cancer affects roughly 3,000,000 people worldwide, with triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) accounting for 10-15% of all cases. In comparison to other types of breast cancer, TNBC stands out for its heterogenies disease, poor prognosis and aggressive behaviour. In the early stages of TNBC, neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC), which is given to the patient before surgery, has been considered a viable treatment strategy. Pathological complete response (pCR), which has been shown to increase estimates of disease-free (the amount of time following treatment during which there are no signs of malignancy), distant recurrence-free (the cancer has spread to far-off regions of the body) and overall survival, has been linked to NAC in 30% of patients. The objective of this study was to apply mass-spectrometry-based proteomics to serum samples from TNBC patients who have received NAC to identify i) biomarkers that might predict response to NAC, ii) biomarkers that might correlate with the extent of residual disease. These biomarkers will potentially inform treatment decisions such as the escalation/de-escalation of chemotherapy dosage for early TNBC patients. In this study, two proteomic approaches have been used to identify and measure protein candidate biomarkers: un-biased LC-MS/MS and targeted proteomics respectively. The discovery approach led to the identification of 17 unique proteins and 118 unique peptides that were differently expressed. The developing of a multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) assay for biomarker evaluation will be based on the prioritization of the potential signature proteins and other proteins obtained from public resources. Subject to successful evaluation and subsequent validation the candidate biomarkers may be beneficial for identifying TNBC patients who will achieve residual disease after NAC. Citation Format: Essraa metwali, Stephen Pennington. Identification of Protein Biomarkers for Early Detection and Stratification of Triple Negative Breast Cancer [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 2022 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium; 2022 Dec 6-10; San Antonio, TX. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2023;83(5 Suppl):Abstract nr P6-01-13.