Circulating Antibodies to Linear Peptide Antigens Derived from ANXA1 and FOXP3 in Lung Cancer.

BACKGROUND: Our previous studies revealed that concentrations of circulating antibodies to annexin A1 (ANXA1) and forkhead-box P3 (FOXP3) increased significantly in patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). This study was thus undertaken to replicate our initial findings with different sample sets.

PATIENTS AND METHODS: Antibodies were tested in 108 patients with NSCLC and 216 controls, who were divided into the discovery (49 vs. 108) and validation (60 vs. 108) group based on the time of enrolment.

RESULTS: Analysis of the discovery group showed a significant increase in circulating anti-ANXA1 IgG levels in the patient group compared with the control group (p=0.005) but the validation group simply exhibited a trend toward an increase in IgG levels in NSCLC (p=0.238), generating a combined p-value of 0.009.

CONCLUSION: The findings of this study support the notion that circulating IgG antibodies to ANXA1 could be used as a biomarker for early diagnosis of NSCLC but failed to replicate such findings for FOXP3.