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Humoral immune response to epidermal growth factor receptor in lung cancer

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Abstract

The aim of this study was to explore the potential value of autoantibody to epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) in the diagnosis of lung cancer (LC) and its relation with EGFR mutations. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was performed to detect the level of autoantibody to EGFR in sera from 254 LC patients and 222 normal controls (NCs). Besides, the mRNA and protein levels of EGFR were investigated in Gene Expression Profiling Interactive Analysis (GEPIA) and Human Protein Atlas (HPA) database, respectively. The level of autoantibody to EGFR (anti-EGFR) in LC even different types of LC was obviously higher than that in NC (P < 0.05). The area under the curve (AUC) of anti-EGFR was 0.695 (95% CI 0.645–0.742) when comparing LC patients with NC, while the AUC of carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) was 0.681 (95% CI 0.629–0.730). Moreover, by integrating anti-EGFR with CEA to diagnose LC, the AUC was up to 0.784 (95% CI 0.737–0.826). However, the expression level of autoantibody to EGFR had no difference between LC patients with and without EGFR gene mutation (P > 0.05). EGFR mRNA expression level was obviously upregulated in squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) tissues compared with normal tissues (P < 0.05), but not in adenocarcinoma (ADC) (P > 0.05). The study confirmed that anti-EGFR could be a potential biomarker for LC diagnosis; additionally, it could improve the diagnostic value of CEA in clinical work.

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Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Number 8167291), the Leading Talents of Science and Technology Innovation in Henan Province (Grant Number 20420051008), the Key project of discipline construction of Zhengzhou University (Grant Number XKZDQY202009), and Project of Basic Research Fund of Henan Institute of Medical and Pharmacological Sciences (Grant Number 2020BP0202).

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  1. Yulin Wang and Fenghui Liu contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Henan Institute of Medical and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Academy of Medical Sciences, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, 450052, Henan, China

    Yulin Wang, Man Liu, Xue Zhang, Liguo Zhang & Liping Dai

  2. Henan Key Laboratory of Tumor Epidemiology & State Key Laboratory of Esophageal Cancer Prevention, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, 450052, Henan, China

    Yulin Wang, Man Liu, Xue Zhang, Peng Wang & Liping Dai

  3. Department of Respiratory and Sleep Medicine in the First Affiliated Hospital, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, 450052, Henan, China

    Fenghui Liu, Songyun OuYang & Chunling Zhao

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  1. Yulin Wang
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Correspondence to Liguo Zhang or Liping Dai.

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Wang, Y., Liu, F., OuYang, S. et al. Humoral immune response to epidermal growth factor receptor in lung cancer. Immunol Res 69, 71–80 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12026-021-09174-8

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