Salivary protein to Detect breast cancer

New Delhi: Breast cancer will be detected from protein. Experts have received information about this. A research team from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee has identified three proteins found in saliva that can predict metastatic triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC).

Researchers say they have developed a process that can detect biomarkers for TNBC in saliva, according to a study published in the Journal of Proteomics.

“Many attempts have been made over the last decade to identify biomarkers of metastatic TNBC, but no success has been achieved in practical applications,” said Kiran Ambatipudi, Associate Professor, Department of Biosciences and Bioengineering, IIT Roorkee. Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women in India, with more than 1.6 lakh cases registered and more than eighty thousand deaths due to breast cancer annually according to official data.

About 10 to 15 percent of all breast cancers are metastatic TNBC, the most aggressive form that does not respond to conventional hormone and HER2-protein targeting drugs. For the study, the team collected saliva from healthy subjects and people with TNBC. Proteins in these saliva samples were isolated and examined for abundance changes by targeted mass spectrometry.

The team discovered differences in the levels of three red blood cell proteins—lipocalin-1, SMR-3B, and plastin-2—between healthy subjects and cancer patients. Subsequent studies isolated five peptides (building blocks of proteins) from these three proteins, which differed between aggressive TNBC and healthy subjects. These peptides can indicate the presence of TNBC with 80 percent sensitivity and 95 percent specificity.