Response to Letter Regarding Article, “β2-Microglobulin as a Biomarker in Peripheral Arterial Disease: Proteomic Profiling and Clinical Studies”

Abstract

Schroecksnadel and collaborators seem a bit skeptical about our recent publication on β2 microglobulin (β2M)1 and about the laudatory editorial2 that accompanied it. Our article described the discovery that blood levels of β2M correlate with the severity of peripheral arterial disease (PAD) as assessed by the ankle-brachial index or treadmill testing. This novel finding arose from an agnostic high-throughput proteomic profiling effort using surface-enhanced laser desorption and ionization time-of-flight mass spectroscopy. This is a candidate-generating approach, in contrast to the more common candidate-based approach to proteomic profiling. The major advantage of the candidate-generating approach is that it provides for the discovery of new biomarkers for disease and potentially new insights into pathobiology. We hypothesized that repeated bouts of ischemia–reperfusion in the lower …