Discovery of prognostic markers for early-stage high-grade serous ovarian cancer by MALDI-Imaging

Purpose With regard to relapse and survival, early-stage high-grade serous ovarian (HGSOC) patients comprises a heterogeneous group and there is no clear consensus on first line treatment. Currently no prognostic markers are available for risk assessment by standard targeted immunohistochemistry and novel approaches are urgently required. Methods Here we applied MALDI-imaging mass spectrometry (MALDI-IMS), a new method to identify distinct mass profiles including protein signatures on paraffin embedded tissue sections. In search of prognostic biomarker candidates, we compared proteomic profiles of primary tumor section from early-stage HGSOC patients with either recurrent (RD) or non-recurrent disease (N=4; each group) as a proof on concept study. Results In total, MALDI-IMS analysis resulted in 7537 spectra from the malignant tumour areas. Using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis, 13 peptides were able to discriminate between patients with RD and non-RD (AUC >0.6 or < 0.4; p < 0.01). Strongest expression levels of specific peptides linked to Keratin type1 and Collagen alpha-2(I) were observed and associated with poor prognosis (AUC >0.7). Conclusion These results confirm that IMS is a useful tool to discover novel prognostic protein markers and the newly identified candidates will be promising subjects of future research in high sample size follow-up studies. Publication History Article published online: 07 October 2020 © 2020. Thieme. All rights reserved. Rüdigerstraße 14, 70469 Stuttgart, Germany