Auto-Antibody Signatures for Disease Diagnosis in Cancer and Autoimmune Diseases

Abstract

We present examples of autoantibody-signatures from autoimmune diseases and several cancer indications. The results are the output from an integrated platform technology to systematically measure auto-antibody signatures in a vast number of blood samples of patients. It remains a challenge to identify serum markers for disease diagnosis and progression as most markers have limited stability and occur in patient samples in minute and highly variable concentrations. Immunoglobulines (IgG) present as functionally robust class of biomolecules. They can bind human proteins to form autoantibody/autoantigen interaction pairs and are well established kits on the market for autoimmune disease diagnostics. In our UNIarray® technology platform large sets of recombinant human proteins are selected from more than 40,000 recombinant human proteins derived from a fetal brain library. We generate various protein microarrays which contain up to 3200 carefully selected proteins. The proteins are spotted as microarrays and serve as binding partners for any IgG which was formed during development of disease or in response to treatment. One of our lead programs is Prostate Cancer, the most common cause of lethal cancer in men. For improved differentiation between benign prostate disease and malign prostate cancer, we are developing a protein biochip for a specific autoantibody signature. A subset of the marker candidates on the biochip prototype already discriminates prostate cancer patients from persons with elevated PSA and biopsy negative with specificity of 73% and sensitivity of 68%. A verification study of the prostate cancer marker candidates in a multi-centre study worldwide is ongoing. Auto-Antibody Signatures for Disease Diagnosis in Cancer and Autoimmune Diseases Stefan Mullner Protagen AG, Germany doi:10.4172/2155-9929.1000006