Measurement of antibodies against tumor suppressor gene products in health screening for lung cancer

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To establish serum markers for early diagnosis of lung cancer, we developed methods to detect autoantibodies against tumor suppressor gene products. In addition, we conducted a large scale survey to confirm the performance of these markers to detect lung cancer among healthy people. First, we developed an immunoblotting assay against bacterially generated GST-RB fusion proteins. Using this assay, we examined 45 sera from lung cancer patients and 30 healthy volunteers. We found 13.3% of lung cancer patients had serum antibodies against GST-Rb fusion proteins, while none of 30 normal volunteers had these antibodies. Secondly, we developed Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA) for detecting anti-Rb antibodies to facilitate measurement a lot of samples. This ELISA system could detect elevated anti-Rb antibodies in serum of lung cancer patients, but not in normal volunteers. These results indicated the usefulness of our measuring systems for anti-Rb antibodies. Thirdly, to study the performance of these measuring systems in health screening for lung cancer, we got the approval of the ethical committee of Tottori University, and of local self-governing bodies in Tottori prefecture. After that, we started to recruit healthy volunteers who provide their serum and information of disease experience in group health examination settings. We are planning to continue this study for more three years. In summary, supported by this grant, we made two sensitive methods to detect autoantibodies against tumor suppressor gene products, verified their usefulness in lung cancer patients as tumor makers, and started mass survey to confirm their performance in health screening for lung cancer. We believe this will lead to the development of a new serum indicator for early detection of lung cancer.