Abstract

Mining the Urinary Proteome for Non-invasive Cancer Biomarkers

Roopali Roy, Research Scientist, Harvard Medical School

Our laboratory has had a long-standing interest in the discovery and validation of non-invasive biomarkers for cancer and other diseases. Our goal has been to leverage the discovery and validation of biomarkers for a variety of diseases to provide useful clinical information with respect to disease development, progression, response to therapy and even risk potential. Focusing on urine as our biosample of choice, we have utilized two discovery approaches in our studies of the urinary proteome. The first approach, a candidate biomarker approach, is one in which the biology of the disease or condition of interest drives discovery. Our second approach is a global proteomics strategy in which we have utilized a variety of mass spectrometry approaches to identify all proteins that are differentially present in urine samples from patients when compared to age-matched and sex-matched controls. This presentation will review a sampling of representative non-invasive, urinary cancer biomarkers such as ADAM12, MMP-2, MMP-9 and TIMP-1 that we have discovered and validated using these approaches and their utility as diagnostic and prognostic indicators or for risk assessment. Finally, we will discuss our strategies for the development of point of care devices for the use of our biomarkers as clinical tests in resource-poor settings.