Methods and compositions for detection of breast cancer
AssigneeBoard of Regents, The University of Texas Systems
InventorsHerbert A. Fritsche, Henry M. Kuerer
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Abstract
Systematic comparisons of breast ductal fluid samples obtained by nipple aspiration from women with unilateral breast cancer revealed significant differences in ductal fluid protein expression between the breast with cancer and the breast without cancer in each patient. This study demonstrates that breast ductal fluid contains over 1000 separate protein species and suggests that ductal fluids from breast cancer patients may be useful for high-throughput biomarker discovery.
Claims29
A method for identifying a marker for breast cancer comprising:
- a) collecting a first sample comprising nipple aspiration fluid from a cancerous breast of a cancer patient;
- b) collecting a second sample comprising nipple aspiration fluid from a noncancerous breast of the cancer patient, wherein the first and second samples comprising fluid from cancerous and noncancerous breasts of the same cancer patient constitutes a paired sample;
- c) separating breast fluid proteins within each of the samples by two-dimensional gel electrophoresis and forming profiles of the separated breast fluid proteins;
- and,
- d) comparing the profiles of breast fluid proteins from the first and second samples,
- wherein a difference in the profiles identifies a breast cancer marker.
A method of identifying a breast cancer marker comprising:
- a) collecting a first sample comprising nipple aspiration fluid from a cancerous breast of a cancer patient;
- b) collecting a second sample comprising nipple aspiration fluid from a noncancerous breast of the cancer patient, wherein the first and second samples comprising fluid from the cancerous and noncancerous breasts of the same cancer patient constitutes a paired sample;
- c) separating breast fluid proteins within each of the samples by two-dimensional gel electrophoresis and fanning profiles of the separated breast fluid proteins;
- and,
- d) comparing the profiles of breast fluid proteins from the first and second samples,
- wherein a difference in the profiles identifies a breast cancer marker.
A method of identifying a marker for breast cancer in a patient comprising:
- a) collecting a blood serum sample from a breast cancer patient;
- b) collecting a nipple aspiration fluid sample from a cancerous breast of the breast cancer patient;
- c) separating blood serum proteins in the blood serum sample and breast fluid proteins in the nipple aspiration fluid sample by two-dimensional polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and forming profiles of the separated proteins and,
- d) comparing a blood serum protein profile from step c) with a breast fluid protein profile from step c),
- wherein a difference in the profiles identifies a breast cancer marker.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.