Clinical Assay for the Early Detection of Colorectal Cancer Using Mass Spectrometric Wheat Germ Agglutinin Multiple Reaction Monitoring

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is currently the third leading cause of cancer related mortality in the world. U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approval circulating tumor markers, including carcinoembryonic antigen, carbohydrate antigen (CA) 19-9 and CA125, were used as prognostic biomarker of CRC that attributed to low sensitivity in diagnosis of CRC. Therefore, our purpose is to develop a novel strategy for novel clinical biomarker for early CRC diagnosis. We used mass spectrometry (MS) methods such as nanoLC-MS/MS, targeted LC-MS/MS, and stable iso-tope-labeled multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) MS coupled to machine learning algorithms and logistic regression to analyze plasma samples from patients with early-stage CRC, late-stage CRC, and healthy controls (HCs).