Abstract
There is a need to develop novel markers for bladder cancer with high specificity and sensitivity. BLCA-4 is one of six identified bladder cancer-specific nuclear structural proteins and is present throughout the bladders of individuals with bladder cancer but is not present in the bladders of disease-free individuals. Utilizing a urine-based immunoassay for BLCA-4, all normal individuals (51) had urinary BLCA-4 levels below the prospectively determined cutoff, whereas 52 of 54 individuals with bladder cancer had urinary BLCA-4 levels above this cutoff indicating a specificity of 100% and a sensitivity of 96.4%. BLCA-4 appears well in advance of visible tumors in animal models of the disease. The cDNA sequence of BLCA-4 reveals a high homology with the ETS family, suggesting that it may serve as a regulator of gene expression in bladder cancer. BLCA-4 appears to be the first bladder cancer specific marker to identify patients with bladder cancer from those without the disease and may play an important role in regulation of bladder gene expression.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 83-86 |
| Number of pages | 4 |
| Journal | Journal of Clinical Ligand Assay |
| Volume | 25 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| State | Published - Mar 2002 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Keywords
- BLCA-4
- Bladder cancer
- ETS genes
- Tumor markers
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Clinical Biochemistry
- Biochemistry, medical
