Serum p53 antibody is a useful tumor marker in superficial esophageal squamous cell carcinoma

Detection of serum autoantibody against GAGE-7 in patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma

AIM: To compare the level of serum autoantibody against cancer-testis antigens GAGE-7 between patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma and normal controls and to evaluate the possibility of using GAGE family members as diagnostic tumor markers.

METHODS: Recombinant GAGE-7 protein was expressed and purified. The level of serum autoantibody against GAGE-7 was detected in patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma serum and normal controls by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Meanwhile, total serum IgG was determined. The ratio of serum autoantibody against GAGE-7 to total serum IgG was then calculated.

RESULTS: The level of serum autoantibody against GAGE-7 was much higher in patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma than in normal controls (P < 0.001). The difference in the ratio of serum autoantibody against GAGE-7 to total serum IgG between the two groups of subjects was more significant than that in the level of serum autoantibody against GAGE-7. Logistic regression analysis showed that detection of the ratio of serum autoantibody against GAGE-7 to total serum IgG for discrimination of the two groups of subjects had a c value of 0.717, a sensitivity of 0.72, and a specificity of 0.62 (P < 0.0001).

CONCLUSION: The level of serum autoantibody against GAGE-7 differs significantly between patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma and normal controls. GAGE family members may be promising markers for diagnosis of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma.

Research and application of tumor markers in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma

Esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC), the main type of esophageal cancer, is one of the most common gastrointestinal malignant cancers. Tumor markers detection are easy, economical, fast and non-invasive. Some tumor markers can be expressed before morphological changes occurred in tissues and organs; therefore, they can be used for the diagnosis of disease in the asymptomatic stage, thus making the research into tumor marker discovery even more meaningful. This paper summarizes several known tumor makers' expression detected in ESCC in recent years, and illustrates them from the aspects of genes, proteins, autoimmune antibodies, antigens and prognostic factors.

Advances in biological characteristics of p53 gene and its role in gastrointestinal tumors

With the progression of current genetic research, tumor-specific gene detection has become an important method to identify tumor patients; meanwhile, gene therapy or gene-targeted therapy, which is becoming a novel approach of tumor treatment, has brought a new hope for the final cure of malignant tumors. In this article, we review the characteristics of tumor-associated gene p53 and its role in gastrointestinal tumors.