PLoS ONE (Jan 2011)

Proteomic biomarkers for acute interstitial lung disease in gefitinib-treated Japanese lung cancer patients.

  • Fredrik Nyberg,
  • Atsushi Ogiwara,
  • Chris G Harbron,
  • Takao Kawakami,
  • Keiko Nagasaka,
  • Sachiko Takami,
  • Kazuya Wada,
  • Hsiao-Kun Tu,
  • Makiko Otsuji,
  • Yutaka Kyono,
  • Tae Dobashi,
  • Yasuhiko Komatsu,
  • Makoto Kihara,
  • Shingo Akimoto,
  • Ian S Peers,
  • Marie C South,
  • Tim Higenbottam,
  • Masahiro Fukuoka,
  • Koichiro Nakata,
  • Yuichiro Ohe,
  • Shoji Kudoh,
  • Ib Groth Clausen,
  • Toshihide Nishimura,
  • György Marko-Varga,
  • Harubumi Kato

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0022062
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 6, no. 7
p. e22062

Abstract

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Interstitial lung disease (ILD) events have been reported in Japanese non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients receiving EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitors. We investigated proteomic biomarkers for mechanistic insights and improved prediction of ILD. Blood plasma was collected from 43 gefitinib-treated NSCLC patients developing acute ILD (confirmed by blinded diagnostic review) and 123 randomly selected controls in a nested case-control study within a pharmacoepidemiological cohort study in Japan. We generated ∼7 million tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) measurements with extensive quality control and validation, producing one of the largest proteomic lung cancer datasets to date, incorporating rigorous study design, phenotype definition, and evaluation of sample processing. After alignment, scaling, and measurement batch adjustment, we identified 41 peptide peaks representing 29 proteins best predicting ILD. Multivariate peptide, protein, and pathway modeling achieved ILD prediction comparable to previously identified clinical variables; combining the two provided some improvement. The acute phase response pathway was strongly represented (17 of 29 proteins, p = 1.0×10(-25)), suggesting a key role with potential utility as a marker for increased risk of acute ILD events. Validation by Western blotting showed correlation for identified proteins, confirming that robust results can be generated from an MS/MS platform implementing strict quality control.