Application of bioinformatics technique to screen of differentially expressed proteins in serums of breast cancer patients with white and yellow coating

Objective: This study aims to explore the presence of informative protein biomarkers in the human serum proteome of breast cancer who have thick tongue coating of white or yellow. Patients and Methods: Taken 10 samples of breast cancer patients with typical thick white coating and thick yellow coating and those with thin white coating in control group in clinic respectively. Blood was collected, serums were taken, and protein was extracted. Then protein denaturation, deoxidization and enzymatic hydrolysis were conducted. Lastly the proteins were labeled with iTRAQ and identified with ESI-QTOF-Q II mass spectrometry. Peak graph was obtained and analyzed with Data Analysis, MASCOTT 2.2 Database Searching and Scaffold software. Results: 335 proteins were identified, and Compared with the control group, a total of 11 serum differentially expressed proteins were screened out in white coating group and yellow coating group of mammary cancer; 6 differentially expressed proteins were screened out in white coating group and yellow coating group of mammary cancer. Conclusion: This study demonstrated that iTRAQ combined with LC-ESI-QTOF-MS quantitative proteomics is a powerful tool for biomarker discovery, and fing some proteins were associated with breast cancer and tongue coating.