Large-scale delineation of secreted protein biomarkers overexpressed in cancer tissue and serum.

Genetic alterations in tumor cells often lead to the emergence of growth-stimulatory autocrine and paracrine signals, involving overexpression of secreted peptide growth factors, cytokines, and hormones. Increased levels of these soluble proteins may be exploited for cancer diagnosis and management or as points of therapeutic intervention. Here, we combined the use of controlled vocabulary terms and sequence-based algorithms to predict genes encoding secreted proteins from among approximately 12,500 sequences represented on oligonucleotide microarrays.