Identification of hemoglobin‐α and ‐β subunits as potential serum biomarkers for the diagnosis and prognosis of ovarian cancer

The development of new biomarkers for ovarian cancer is clearly necessary for the improved detection and monitoring of the disease. Surface enhanced laser desorption and ionization time‐of‐flight mass spectrometry (SELDI‐TOF‐MS) can be employed in the identification of differentially expressed proteins in cancer cells. The objective of this study was, then, to identify potential diagnostic serological biomarkers for ovarian cancer. We performed protein expression difference analyses of 45 serum samples using SELDI protein chip array. Forty‐five sera obtained from ovarian cancer patients (n = 35) and normal healthy females (n = 10), were profiled on the surface of SELDI protein chip. The candidate biomarkers were purified by CM‐Sepharose, and their N‐terminal amino sequence was determined. The amounts of hemoglobin (Hb) in cancer patient's sera versus that of normal sera were measured by ELISA. Nine sera proteins that were found to be significantly differentially expressed (P