Similarities and Differences of Blood N-Glycoproteins in Five Solid Carcinomas at Localized Clinical Stage Analyzed by SWATH-MS

Cancer is mostly incurable when diagnosed at a metastatic stage, making its early detection via blood proteins of immense clinical interest. Proteomic changes in tumor tissue may lead to changes detectable in the protein composition of circulating blood plasma. Using a proteomic workflow combining N-glycosite enrichment and SWATH mass spectrometry, we generate a data resource of 284 blood samples derived from patients with different types of localized-stage carcinomas and from matched controls. We observe whether the changes in the patient’s plasma are specific to a particular carcinoma or represent a generic signature of proteins modified uniformly in a common, systemic response to many cancers. A quantitative comparison of the resulting N-glycosite profiles discovers that proteins related to blood platelets are common to several cancers (e.g., THBS1), whereas others are highly cancer-type specific. Available proteomics data, including a SWATH library to study N-glycoproteins, will facilitate follow-up biomarker research into early cancer detection. [Display omitted] •SWATH-MS glycoproteomics enables large-scale plasma analysis across multiple cancers•Localized-stage carcinomas display common blood changes related to platelet proteins•Both common and cancer-specific markers stratify subjects with localized cancer•Data resource of hundreds of cancer-associated N-linked glycoproteins readily available Sajic et al. perform a multi-tumor plasma proteomic study in which they enrich and analyze tissue-secreted plasma glycoproteins to examine blood protein changes in early-stage localized cancers. They demonstrate that many proteins secreted upon platelet activation are changed in several tissue carcinomas, whereas others have changes specific to a single carcinoma type.