Comparison of early stages of colorectal cancer by label free proteomics

Introduction and objectives: Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the second most frequent cancer in women and the third in men. Identification of the mechanisms of progression in these early CRC stages is important to develop new diagnostic and therapeutic tools. Formalin-Fixed Paraffin-Embedded (FFPE) specimens are materials that enable proteomic clinical research. Hence our aim was to address the comparison of FFPE samples from early CRC stages patients using shotgun proteomic analysis.
Methods: We performed a retrospective study on 36 CRC tissue samples (pT1N0M0, n=16 and pT2N0M0, n=20) compared together and with 40 control tissue samples (20 patients with diverticulitis, using paired inflamed (DI) and healthy tissue (DH)). Each tissue slice was macrodissected to enrich in epithelial cells. We used FFPE-FASP kit (Expedeon) for sample preparation and protein digests were analyzed using 2D-nanoAquity UPLC separation online with Q-Tof Synapt HDMSTM G2 using ion mobility as additional separation. We performed protein identification and differential analysis using Progenesis QI for proteomics (Nonlinear Dynamics).
Results and discussion: We selected 149 proteins differentially distributed between T1 and T2 CRC stages which were not significantly different between CRC and DH or DI. Only 30 proteins were significantly more abundant in T1 versus T2 and 119 were distributed inversely, with a minimum fold ratio of 2. Among those, ATP synthase subunit beta, Aspartate-tRNA ligase, Haptoglobin and Kininogen were identified. . Moreover, we validated Kininogen and 3 others proteins with a significant differential distribution between pT1N0M0 and pT2N0M0 stages by immunohistochemistry.
Conclusion: This FFPE retrospective study comparing T1 and T2 CRC highlighted proteins already previously identified as potential CRC biomarkers. These proteins may reflect important early changes in cancer development and may help understanding early tumor progression.