Development of Parallel Reaction Monitoring Assays for the Detection of Aggressive Prostate Cancer Using Urinary Glycoproteins

Recently, we have found that two urinary glycoproteins, prostatic acid phosphatase (ACPP) and clusterin (CLU), combined with serum prostate-specific antigen (PSA) can serve as a three-signature panel for detecting aggressive prostate cancer (PCa) based on a quantitative glycoproteomic study. To facilitate the translation of candidates into clinically applicable tests, robust and accurate targeted parallel reaction monitoring (PRM) assays that can be widely adopted in multiple labs were developed in this study. The developed PRM assays for the urinary glycopeptides, FLN*ESYK from ACPP and EDALN*ETR from CLU, demonstrated good repeatability and a sufficient working range covering three to four orders of magnitude, and their performance in differentiating aggressive PCa was assessed by the quantitative analysis of urine specimens collected from 69 nonaggressive (Gleason score = 6) and 73 aggressive (Gleason ≥ 8) PCa patients. When ACPP combined with CLU, the discrimination power was improved from an area under a curve (AUC) of 0.66 to 0.78. By combining ACPP, CLU, and serum PSA to form a three-signature panel, the AUC was further improved to 0.83 (sensitivity: 84.9%, specificity: 66.7%). Since the serum PSA test alone had an AUC of 0.68, our results demonstrated that the new urinary glycopeptide PRM assays can serve as an adjunct to the serum PSA test to achieve better predictive power toward aggressive PCa. In summary, our developed PRM assays for urinary glycopeptides were successfully applied to clinical PCa urine samples with a promising performance in aggressive PCa detection.