Background & objective: Concurrent chemoradiotherapy is a new therapy for intermediate stage and advanced cervical carcinoma, but no valid index for prediction of concurrent chemoradiotherapy sensitivity is available. This study was to screen concurrent chemoradiotherapy sensitivity-associated proteins in intermediate stage and advanced cervical carcinoma.
Methods: Biopsy samples of 10 cervical carcinoma patients were collected before treatment. According to their responses to concurrent chemoradiotherapy (WHO standard), the patients were classified into high sensitivity (HS) group (5 patients) and low sensitivity (LS) group (5 patients). Total protein were extracted from the biopsy samples. Differential proteins were detected by two-dimensional gel electrophoresis (2-DE) and confirmed by matrix assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF-MS). Two differentially expressed proteins were further detected by immunohistochemistry in 95 specimens of cervical carcinoma, including 60 high sensitive cases and 35 low sensitive cases.
Results: Nineteen differentially expressed proteins were identified: 9 were highly expressed and 10 were lowly expressed in high sensitive group as compared with those in low sensitive group. According to immunohistochemical results, the expression intensity of heat shock protein 70 (HSP70) was higher and that of S100A9 protein was lower in HS group than in LS group; the positive rate of S100A9 was significantly higher and that of HSP70 was significantly lower in HS group than in LS group (88.3% vs. 28.6%, chi2=35.34, P<0.001; 21.7% vs. 85.7%, chi2=36.59, P<0.001).
Conclusions: Differentially expressed proteins that related to concurrent chemoradiotherapy sensitivity of cervical carcinoma are identified. They may be candidate biomarkers for prediction of concurrent chemoradiotherapy sensitivity.