Urine Protein Biomarkers of Bladder Cancer arising from Aptamer-based Screening of 1300 proteins

Bladder cancer is currently the fourth most common cancer, the sixth most common cause of cancer death among men, and has proven to be a recurring challenge to find a non-invasive form of detection and monitoring. About one in three bladder cancers spread into deep tissue layers, but more commonly, cancer tends to spread outside the bladder. The number of bladder cancer cases and deaths have recently dropped, however, in men, death rates remain stable. The most common techniques used for bladder cancer detection include cystoscopy and biopsy, urine-based biomarkers, and urinary cytology. In recent years, Aptamer-based screening and ELISA validation have been able to analyze protein arrays in relatively large scales with exceptional accuracy. SOMAscan technology can quantify multiple biomarkers from a single well with a very small amount of sample allowing the analysis of multiple proteins and their characteristics that are related to different forms of cancer. Using these methods, one can assess even low abundance proteins and measure their concentrations within different solutions. The current study examines urine samples from 51 subjects, comprised of 15 Urology clinic controls, 35 bladder cancer patients, and 9 prostate cancer patients using an Aptamer-based screening platform. From the data collected, 26 proteins were then selected to undergo target ELISA validation using urine samples from the initial cohort. Proteins that are successfully validated will then be selected for secondary ELISA validation using an independent patient cohort. Allowing experimenters to identify which proteins prove to be novel urinary biomarkers of bladder cancer.