• Mass Spectrometry Letters
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• 제12권3호
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• pp.93-105
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• 2021

Exosomes have gained the attention of the scientific community because of their role in facilitating intercellular communication, which is critical in disease monitoring and drug delivery research. Exosome research has grown significantly in recent decades, with a focus on the development of various technologies for isolating and characterizing exosomes. Among these efforts is the use of matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization (MALDI) mass spectrometry (MS), which offers high-throughput direct analysis while also being cost and time effective. MALDI is used less frequently in exosome research than electrospray ionization due to the diverse population of extracellular vesicles and the impurity of isolated products, both of which necessitate chromatographic separation prior to MS analysis. However, MALDI-MS is a more appropriate instrument for the analytical approach to patient therapy, given it allows for fast and label-free analysis. There is a huge drive to explore MALDI-MS in exosome research because the technology holds great potential, most notably in biomarker discovery. With methods such as fingerprint analysis, OMICs profiling, and statistical analysis, the search for biomarkers could be much more efficient. In this review, we highlight the potential of MALDI-MS as a tool for investigating exosomes and some of the possible strategies that can be implemented based on prior research.

• Journal of Digestive Cancer Research
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• 제10권2호
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• pp.65-73
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• 2022

A breakthrough in immunotherapy has changed the outlook for metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC) treatment as the immune surveillance evasion mechanism of tumor cells has been continuously elucidated. Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI), such as pembrolizumab, nivolumab, and ipilimumab, which block immune checkpoint receptors or ligands have been approved for the treatment of mismatch repair deficient (dMMR)/microsatellite instability-high (MSI-H) mCRC based on numerous clinical studies. However, 50% of dMMR/MSI-H mCRC and most mismatch repair proficient/microsatellite stable mCRC remained unresponsive to current immunotherapy. Clinical trials on combination therapy that adds various treatments, such as target agents, chemotherapy, or radiation therapy to ICI, have been actively conducted to overcome this immunotherapy limitation. Further studies on safety and efficacy are needed although several trials presented promising data. Additionally, dMMR/MSI-H, tumor mutation burden, and programmed cell death ligand-1 expression have been studied as biomarkers for predicting the treatment response to immunotherapy, but the discovery and validation of more sensitively predictable biomarkers remained necessary. Thus, this study aimed to review recent studies on immunotherapy in mCRC, summarize the efficacy and limitation of immunotherapy, and describe the biomarkers that predict treatment response.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• 제15권18호
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• pp.7575-7581
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• 2014

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) play an essential role in the development and progression of nasopharyngeal carcinomas (NPC). Despite advances in the field of cancer molecular biology and biomarker discovery, the development of clinically validated biomarkers for primary NPC has remained elusive. In this study, we investigated the expression and clinical significance of miRNAs as novel primary NPC diagnostic biomarkers. We used an array containing 2, 500 miRNAs to identify 22 significant miRNAs, and these candidate miRNAs were validated using 67 fresh NPC and 25 normal control tissues via quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR). Expression and correlation analyses were performed with various statistical approaches, in addition to logistic regression and receiver operating characteristic curve analyses to evaluate diagnostic efficacy. qRT-PCR revealed five differentially expressed miRNAs (miR-93-5p, miR-135b-5p, miR-205-5p and miR-183-5p) in NPC tissue samples relative to control samples (p<0.05), with miR-135b-5p and miR-205-5p being of significant diagnostic value (p<0.01). Moreover, comparison of NPC patient clinicopathologic data revealed a negative correlation between miR-93-5p and miR-183-5p expression levels and lymph node status (p<0.05). These findings display an altered expression of many miRNAs in NPC tissues, thus providing information pertinent to pathophysiological and diagnostic research. Ultimately, miR-135b-5p and miR-205-5p may be implicated as novel NPC candidate biomarkers, while miR-93-5p, miR-650 and miR-183-5p may find application as relevant clinical pathology and diagnostic candidate biomarkers.

• 대한임상검사과학회지
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• 제54권4호
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• pp.249-255
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• 2022

알츠하이머병은 주요한 공중보건 문제로 나타나며 연구분야에서도 최우선적인 과제이다. 알츠하이머병(AD)에서 뇌척수액(CSF)을 활용한 바이오마커인 아밀로이드-β(Aβ42), 총 타우(T-tau) 및 인산화 타우(P-tau)가 알츠하이머병 병태생리학의 핵심 요소를 반영한다. 임상 연구 및 새로운 측정법을 통한 임상적으로 활용되는 진단은 전임상 알츠하이머병에 대해 민감적이고 특이적이며 신뢰할 수 있는 바이오마커의 발굴, 뿐만 아니라 치매의 조기 발견 및 감별 진단과 질병 진행 모니터링에 도움이 되는 검사법의 개발에도 중요할 것이다. 증상 전 단계에서 AD의 조기 발견은 시냅스 손상 및 신경 손실이 확장되기 전에 개입이 수행되기 때문에 치료 개입을 조기에 가능하게 하고 치료 성공을 위한 가능성이 더 큰 좋은 기회로 이어진다. 따라서 새롭고 접근하기 쉽고 비용이 적게 드는 바이오마커를 임상 진단에 활용하는 것이 매우 유익할 것이다. 치매의 초기단계에 일어나는 병리학적 변화나, 질병의 진행정도를 추적할 수 있는 다양한 바이오마커들의 진단방법을 찾는 일은 치료제 개발처럼 중요한 연구 분야이다. 조기진단을 위해 임상증상을 대변하거나(surrogate marker), 증상이 나타나기 이전 상태를 측정할 수 있는 새로운 진단마커가 필요한 상황이다. 이러한 이유로 인지기능 저하정도를 측정하여 정상, 경도인지장애(mild cognition impairment, MCI) 및 전임상(preclinical) 상태의 사람을 판별할 수 있는 바이오마커(biomarker)를 활용한 조기진단법 개발의 중요성이 강조되고 있다.

• Molecules and Cells
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• 제40권7호
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• pp.466-475
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• 2017

Dietary supplements have exhibited myriads of positive health effects on human health conditions and with the advent of new technological advances, including in the fields of proteomics, genomics, and metabolomics, biological and pharmacological activities of dietary supplements are being evaluated for their ameliorative effects in human ailments. Recent interests in understanding and discovering the molecular targets of phytochemical-gene-protein-metabolite dynamics resulted in discovery of a few protein signature candidates that could potentially be used to assess the effects of dietary supplements on human health. Persimmon (Diospyros kaki) is a folk medicine, commonly used as dietary supplement in China, Japan, and South Korea, owing to its different beneficial health effects including anti-diabetic implications. However, neither mechanism of action nor molecular biomarkers have been discovered that could either validate or be used to evaluate effects of persimmon on human health. In present study, Mass Spectrometry (MS)-based proteomic studies were accomplished to discover proteomic molecular signatures that could be used to understand therapeutic potentials of persimmon leaf extract (PLE) in diabetes amelioration. Saliva, serum, and urine samples were analyzed and we propose that salivary proteins can be used for evaluating treatment effectiveness and in improving patient compliance. The present discovery proteomics study demonstrates that salivary proteomic profile changes were found as a result of PLE treatment in prediabetic subjects that could specifically be used as potential protein signature candidates.

• Mass Spectrometry Letters
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• 제8권4호
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• pp.109-113
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• 2017

Single analytical procedure including extraction, liquid chromatography, and mass spectrometric analysis was evaluated for the simultaneous measurement of lysophospholipids (LPLs). LPLs, particularly, lysophosphatidic acids (LPA) and sphingosine 1-phosphate (S1P) are lipid messengers ubiquitously found in various biological matrix. The molecular species mediate important physiological roles in association with many diseases (e.g. cancer, inflammation, and neurodegenerative disease), which emphasize the significance of the simple and reliable analytical method for biomarker discovery and molecular mechanistic understanding. Thus, we developed analytical method mainly focusing on, but not limited by those lipid species S1P and LPA using reverse phase liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (RPLC-ESI-MS-MS). Extraction method was modified based on Folch method with optimally minimal level of ionization additive (ammonium formate 10 mM and formic acid). Reverse-phase liquid-chromatography was applied for chromatographical separation in combination with negative ionization mode electrospray-coupled Orbitrap mass spectrometry. The method validation was performed on human blood plasma in a non-targeted lipid profiling manner with full-scan MS mode and data-dependent MS/MS. The proposed method presented good inter-assay precision for primary targets, S1P and LPA. Subsequent analysis of other types of LPLs identified a broad range of lysophosphatidylcholines (LPCs) and lysophosphatidyl-ethanolamines (LPEs).

• Mass Spectrometry Letters
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• 제8권4호
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• pp.114-118
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• 2017

While saliva can be considered as good biological fluid for monitoring biomarkers due to many advantages including its communication with blood and the non-invasive nature during its sampling, its applications to that purpose is still limited. As a part of efforts to expand the applications of saliva to the protein biomarker research, we carried out global absolute quantitation of proteins in human whole saliva (WS) by bottom-up proteomics techniques mainly based on nLC-Q-IMS-TOF employing $MS^E$. From the analyses of a pooled WS sample collected from 22 healthy Korean volunteers, 93 proteins ranging from $5.89{\times}10^1ng/mL$ (immunoglobulin heavy chain) to $1.59{\times}10^4ng/mL$ (${\alpha}-amylase$ 1) were confirmed. For the validation of the present results, human serum albumin in the same sample was quantitated by ELISA and its result was compared with that from the nLC-Q-IMS-TOF study. As a result, there was no significant difference between two results from individual approaches ($1.18{\times}10^4{\pm}0.03{\times}10^4 ng/mL$ from nLC-Q-IMS-TOF experiments vs. $1.23{\times}10^4{\pm}0.07{\times}10^4ng/mL$ from ELISA experiments, n=3, p=0.309). To our knowledge, this is the first global absolute quantitation of proteins in human whole saliva and information from the present study can be widely used as the first level reference for the discovery of new protein biomarkers from human whole saliva as well as for quantitative applications of human whole saliva proteins.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• 제19권7호
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• pp.635-646
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• 2009

Rapid and accurate diagnosis of diseases is very important for appropriate treatment of patients. Recent advances in molecular-level interaction and detection technologies are upgrading the clinical diagnostics by providing new ways of diagnosis, with higher speed and accuracy. In particular, DNA microarrays can be efficiently used in clinical diagnostics which span from discovery of diseaserelevant genes to diagnosis using its biomarkers. Diagnostic DNA microarrays have been used for genotyping and determination of disease-relevant genes or agents causing diseases, mutation analysis, screening of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), detection of chromosome abnormalities, and global determination of posttranslational modification. The performance of DNA-microarray-based diagnosis is continuously improving by the integration of other tools. Thus, DNA microarrays will play a central role in clinical diagnostics and will become a gold standard method for disease diagnosis. In this paper, various applications of DNA microarrays in disease diagnosis are reviewed. Special effort was made to cover the information disclosed in the patents so that recent trends and missing applications can be revealed.

• Mass Spectrometry Letters
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• 제4권4호
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• pp.59-66
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• 2013

A metabolomics study was conducted to identify urinary biomarkers for breast cancer, using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS), analyzed by principal components analysis (PCA) as well as a partial least squares-discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) for a metabolic pattern analysis. To find potential biomarkers, urine samples were collected from before- and after-mastectomy of breast cancer patients and healthy controls. Androgens, corticoids, estrogens, nucleosides, and polyols were quantitatively measured and urinary metabolic profiles were constructed through PCA and PLS-DA. The possible biomarkers were discriminated from quantified targeted metabolites with a metabolic pattern analysis and subsequent screening. We identified two biomarkers for breast cancer in urine, ${\beta}$-cortol and 5-methyl-2-deoxycytidine, which were categorized at significant levels in a student t-test (p-value < 0.05). The concentrations of these metabolites in breast cancer patients significantly increased relative to those of controls and patients after mastectomy. Biomarkers identified in this study were highly related to metabolites causing oxidative DNA damage in the endogenous metabolism. These biomarkers are not only useful for diagnostics and patient stratification but can be mapped on a biochemical chart to identify the corresponding enzyme for target identification via metabolomics.

• Mass Spectrometry Letters
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• 제5권3호
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• pp.63-69
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• 2014

In this study, we present a new isotope-coded carbamidomethylation (iCCM)-based quantitative proteomics, as a complementary strategy for conventional isotope labeling strategies, with providing the simplicity, ease of use, and robustness. In iCCM-based quantification, two proteome samples can be separately isotope-labeled by means of covalently reaction of all cysteinyl residues in proteins with iodoacetamide (IAA) and its isotope (IAA-$^{13}C_2$, $D_2$), denoted as CM and iCCM, respectively, leading to a mass shift of all cysteinyl residues to be + 4 Da. To evaluate iCCM-based isotope labeling in proteomic quantification, 6 protein standards (i.e., bovine serum albumin, serotransferrin, lysozyme, beta-lactoglobulin, beta-galactosidase, and alpha-lactalbumin) isotopically labeled with IAA and its isotope, mixed equally, and followed by proteolytic digestion. The resulting CM-/iCCM-labeled peptide mixtures were analyzed using a nLC-ESI-FT orbitrap-MS/MS. From our experimental results, we found that the efficiency of iCCM-based quantification is more superior to that of mTRAQ, as a conventional nonisobaric labeling method, in which both of a number of identified peptides from 6 protein standards and the less quantitative variations in the relative abundance ratios of heavy-/light-labeled corresponding peptide pairs. Finally, we applied the developed iCCM-based quantitative method to lung cancer serum proteome in order to evaluate the potential in biomarker discovery study.