Potential biomarkers for antidiastole of tuberculous and malignant pleural effusion by proteome analysis.

Aim: To investigate novel potential biomarkers for antidiastole of tuberculous pleural effusion (TPE) from malignant pleural effusion (MPE).

Materials & Methods: iTRAQTM-coupled LC-MS/MS were applied to analyze the proteome of TPE and MPE samples. The candidate proteins were verified by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay.

Results: A total of 432 differential proteins were identified. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay revealed significantly higher levels of fibronectin (FN) and cathepsin G (CTSG) in MPE than in TPE, but lower levels of leukotriene-A4 hydrolase (LTA4H). The receiver operator characteristic values were 0.285 for FN, 0.64 for LTA4H, 0.337 for CTSG and 0.793 for a combination of these candidate markers.

Conclusion: FN, LTA4H and CTSG were identified as potential biomarkers to differentiate TPE from MPE and their combination exhibited higher diagnostic capacity.