Markers of Ovarian Cancer Using a Glycoprotein/Antibody Array

Abstract : Profiling of the glycan structures that differ between the serum of serous ovarian cancer and benign conditions have been performed using lectin array for biomarker studies. These arrays have used 16 different lectins which respond to specific glycan structural moieties of glycoproteins in patient serum. It has been found that there are distinct changes in the level of fucosylation between cancer and benign using LCA, AAL and UEA lectins which detect both core and outer arm glycosylation. Some difference was also observed for SNA which detects 2,6 sialylation. Using these lectins we have been able to extract the glycoproteins from patient serum and have evaluated the differentially expressed glycoproteins based on mass spec and glycoarray technologies. We have identified 10-12 glycoproteins which show distinct changes in expression between benign conditions, normals, early stage ovarian cancer and stage 3c serous ovarian cancer. These glycoproteins have been used for further blinded validations using a limited set.