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Review
. 2022 Nov 14:13:1035402.
doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2022.1035402. eCollection 2022.

Autoantibodies as biomarkers for breast cancer diagnosis and prognosis

Ruozhu Yang  1 , Yi Han  1 , Wenjun Yi  1 , Qian Long  1
Affiliations
Review

Autoantibodies as biomarkers for breast cancer diagnosis and prognosis

Ruozhu Yang et al. Front Immunol. .

Abstract

Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women worldwide and is a substantial public health problem. Screening for breast cancer mainly relies on mammography, which leads to false positives and missed diagnoses and is especially non-sensitive for patients with small tumors and dense breasts. The prognosis of breast cancer is mainly classified by tumor, node, and metastasis (TNM) staging, but this method does not consider the molecular characteristics of the tumor. As the product of the immune response to tumor-associated antigens, autoantibodies can be detected in peripheral blood and can be used as noninvasive, presymptomatic, and low-cost biomarkers. Therefore, autoantibodies can provide a possible supplementary method for breast cancer screening and prognosis classification. This article introduces the methods used to detect peripheral blood autoantibodies and the research progress in the screening and prognosis of breast cancer made in recent years to provide a potential direction for the examination and treatment of breast cancer.

Keywords: autoantibody; autoantibody detection; breast cancer; early diagnosis; prognosis.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Production and detection of peripheral blood autoantibodies. Tumor associated antigens (TAAs) produced by tumor cells stimulate B cells to differentiate into memory B cells and plasma B cells that can produce autoantibodies. These autoantibodies enter the peripheral blood. The abundance of autoantibodies in peripheral blood is much greater than that of TAAs through the amplification of the immune response process. Therefore, autoantibodies can be detected from plasma or serum to assist in breast cancer screening. Created with BioRender.com.
Figure 2
Figure 2
The composition, advantage, and problem of autoantibody panels. Multiple autoantibodies and/or other proteins constitutes a panel. Detection of these substances in peripheral blood can help in breast cancer screening. The advantage of panels is that they possibly help to obtain higher AUC and sensitivity than detecting for single autoantibodies, but the specificity may not be improved. The difficulty is that there is no recognized best method for selecting autoantibodies or other proteins that make up a panel. Created with BioRender.com.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Methods for identifying tumor-associated antigens and correlated autoantibodies. Created with BioRender.com.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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