The prevalence of autoantibodies against Pokemon in hepatocellular carcinoma and its significance

Abstract

Objective To investigate the prevalence of autoantibodies against Pokemon in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and its significance as a serological diagnostic biomarker.Methods Recombinant Pokemon protein was expressed from E.coli BL21 (E3) and was purified using nickel column chromatography.The antigenicity of the purified Pokemon protein was performed by Western blotting.Autoantibody responses to Pokemon were evaluated by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELlSA) in sera from 142 patients with HCC,28 with liver cirrhosis (LC) and 30 with chronic hepatitis (CH),as well as from 96 normal human individuals.Results The antigenicity of the purified Pokemon protein was confirmed and the recombinant Pokemon was able be used as coated protein in ELISA assay.The prevalence of autoantibodies against Pokemon was 49％ (69/142) in HCC,which was significantly higher than that in LC (0),CH (0) and normal hnman sera(0) (NHS; P ＜0.01).The average titer of autoantibodies against Pokemon in HCC sera(0.51 ±0.03) was higher compared to that in LC (0.16 ±0.03),CH (0.18 ±0.05) and NHS(0.17 ± 0.01) (P ＜ 0.01).When both autoantibodies against Pokemon and alpha fetal protein (AFP) were used simultaneously as diagnostic markers,sensitivity reached 71.12％.Conclusion Anti-Pokemon autoantibodies may be potential diagnostic markers for HCC,especially in conjunction with AFP. Key words: Pokemon; Autoantibodies; Tumor associated antigen; Hepatocellular carcinoma