Circulating Biomarkers to Identify Thyroid Cancer
Circulating Biomarkers to Identify Thyroid Cancer
This study aimed to identify the potential circulating biomarkers of protein, mRNAs, and long
 non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) to diﬀerentiate the papillary thyroid cancers from benign thyroid
 tumors. Methods: The study population of 100 patients was classified into identification (10
 patients with papillary thyroid cancers and 10 patients with benign thyroid tumors) and
 validation groups (45 patients with papillary thyroid cancers and 35 patients with benign
 thyroid tumors). The Sengenics Immunome Protein Array combined data mining approach using the
 Open Targets Platform was used to identify the putative protein biomarkers, and their
 expression validated using the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Next-generation sequencing
 by Illumina HiSeq was used for the detection of dysregulated mRNAs and lncRNAs. The website
 Timer v2.0 helped identify the putative mRNA biomarkers, which were significantly
 over-expressed in papillary thyroid cancers than in adjacent normal thyroid tissue. The mRNA
 and lncRNAs biomarker expression was validated by a real-time polymerase chain reaction.
Novel biomarkers identification from liquid biopsy samples is in great demand for the
 diagnosis for malignant diseases. Generally, blood sampling is less invasive and could be
 carried out repeatedly. In addition to protein markers, circulating nucleic acids are
 promising sources of cancer biomarkers , since circulating nucleic acids provide information
 on the genome or gene expression , and harbor wealth of health and disease status
 information. The long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) are the transcripts longer than 200
 nucleotides in length and act as prominent regulators of gene expression. Accumulating
 evidence demonstrated the involvement of lncRNA dysregulation in a variety of cancers, and
 their expression is associated with cancer development and metastasis. This study was
 designed to identify the potential protein and RNA biomarkers in the blood for diﬀerentiating
 a malignant thyroid tumor from a benign thyroid nodule. In this study, only patients with
 papillary thyroid carcinoma, the most common type of thyroid cancer, were chosen for
 comparison with those with benign thyroid tumors to simplify the comparison.
Inclusion Criteria:

 -  Patients with thyroid nodules who received total or subtotal thyroidectomy

 -  Patients aged 20 years and above

 Exclusion Criteria:

 -  Patients with any other type of cancer, immunocompromised disease, or autoimmune
 disease.