Analysis of differentially expressed protein from COPD patient serum

Objective: To screen potential specific biomarkers in serum of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients using pre-fractionated magnetic bead based sample fractionation method combined with matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF-MS) technology. Methods: We compared serum proteomic profiling of 16 COPD patients and 32 healthy controls by MB-WCX-MALDI-TOF-MS. Results: By analyzing the spectra (screened from two groups) using the ClinProTools software, 24 of all 115 peaks generated were found to be very significantly differently expressed (P<0.001) between the two groups. And 14 peaks were up-expressed while the other 10 peaks were down-expressed in COPD patients. The two max differentially expressed peaks were m/z: 1012.92 and m/z: 4152.85. Conclusion: We were able to identify proteomic patterns that could clearly distinguish between COPD patients and healthy controls based on MB-WCX-MALDI-TOF-MS analysis.