Neuroendocrine
cervical cancer is an aggressive but rare form of
cervical cancer. The majority of neuroendocrine
cervical cancer patients present with advanced-stage diseases. However, the limited numbers of
neuroendocrine tumor markers are insufficient for clinical purposes. Thus, we used a proteomic approach combining
lysine labeling 2D-DIGE and MALDI-TOF MS to investigate the
biomarkers for neuroendocrine
cervical cancer. By analyzing the global
proteome alteration between the neuroendocrine
cervical cancer line (HM-1) and non-neuroendocrine
cervical cancer lines (CaSki cells, ME-180 cells, and Hela cells), we identified 82
proteins exhibiting marked changes between HM-1 and CaSki cells, and between ME-180 and Hela cells. Several
proteins involved in protein folding, cytoskeleton, transcription control, signal transduction, glycolysis, and redox regulation exhibited significant changes in abundance. Proteomic and immunoblot analyses indicated respective 49.88-fold and 25-fold increased levels of
transgelin in HM-1 cells compared with that in other non-neuroendocrine
cervical cancer cell lines, implying that
transgelin is a
biomarker for neuroendocrine
cervical cancer. In summary, we used a comprehensive neuroendocrine/non-neuroendocrine
cervical cancer model based proteomic approach for identifying neuroendocrine
cervical cancer markers, which might contribute to the prognosis and diagnosis of neuroendocrine
cervical cancer.