Measuring the intra-individual variability of the plasma proteome in the chicken model of spontaneous ovarian adenocarcinoma.

The domestic chicken (Gallus domesticus) has emerged as a powerful experimental model for studying the onset and progression of spontaneous epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) with a disease prevalence that can exceed 35% between 2 and 7 years of age. An experimental strategy for biomarker discovery is reported herein that combines the chicken model of EOC, longitudinal plasma sample collection with matched tissues, advanced mass spectrometry-based proteomics, and concepts derived from the index of individuality (Harris, Clin Chem 20: 1535-1542, 1974). Blood was drawn from 148 age-matched chickens starting at 2.