A New Chemiluminescent Enzyme Immunoassay for Plasma Tissue FactorDetection

High concentrations of tissue factor (TF) in the plasma may have a major role in the elevated risk of thrombosis in patients with malignant diseases. The quantification of plasma TF concentrations in cancer patients may enable accurate assessments of the risk of thrombosis during the process of cancer progression. Whether the plasma TF concentration is associated with the tumor volume in pancreatic cancer in the field of cancer biology remains uncertain. Rat anti-human TF monoclonal antibodies were prepared in our laboratory and were used in a chemiluminescent enzyme immunoassay (CLEIA) for TF detection. In an in vitro experiment, the antibodies for human TF did not crossreact with mouse TF. Therefore, tumor-derived TF was specifically detected using a novel sensitive human TF detection system developed for this study. The plasma concentration of tumor-derived TF was positively correlated with the tumor volume in mice bearing the human pancreatic cancer cell line BxPC-3. Thus, the plasma TF concentration may be a useful tumor marker. These data warrant further preclinical and clinical investigations of our CLEIA system.