Abstract
Since intracellular proteins involved in carcinogenesis have been shown to provoke autoantibody responses, autoantibodies can be used as probes in immunoproteomics to isolate, identify, and characterize potential tumor-associated antigens (TAAs). Once a TAA is identified, several approaches will be used to comprehensively characterize and validate the identified TAA/anti-TAA systems that are potential biomarkers in certain types of cancer. Our ultimate goal is to establish rigorous criteria for designation of an autoantibody to a TAA as a cancer biomarker, examine candidate TAAs for sensitivity and specificity of anti-TAA antibody response, and further develop customized TAA arrays that can be used to enhance anti-TAA antibody detection in cancer. This review will mainly focus on the recent advances in our studies using immunoproteomic approach to identify and characterize TAAs as biomarkers in cancer.