Data-Independent Acquisition Analysis to Identify Serum Biomarkers and Neoantigens for Differentiating Colorectal Cancer from Inflammatory Bowel Disease

Early detection of colorectal cancer (CRC) and distinguishing inflammatory bowel diseases from cancerous conditions significantly improve survival rates. While colonoscopy is the gold standard for CRC detection, it is invasive and associated with potential complications. Therefore, there is a need for blood biomarkers that possess high sensitivity and specificity which can be used for pre-diagnosis. In this study, we screened for serum biomarkers specifically altered in colonoscopy-positive (CP) patients (cancer group) when compared to colonoscopy-negative (CN) patients (suffering from other bowel-related illnesses with symptoms similar to CRC), and healthy control (HC) individuals (n=20 each). Using Data-Independent Acquisition-Mass spectrometry (DIA-MS) analysis, we identified potential protein markers and neoantigens uniquely altered in the CP group compared to the CN group.