Circulating proteolytic signatures of chemotherapy-induced cell death in humans discovered by N-terminal labeling.

ABSTRACT: It is known that many chemotherapeutics induce cellular apoptosis over hours to days. During apoptosis, numerous cellular proteases are activated, most canonically the caspases. We speculated that detection of proteolytic fragments released from apoptotic cells into the peripheral blood may serve as a unique indicator of chemotherapy-induced cell death. Here we used an enzymatic labeling process to positively enrich free peptide α-amines in the plasma of hematologic malignancy patients soon after beginning treatment. This N-terminomic approach largely avoids interference by high-abundance proteins that complicate traditional plasma proteomic analyses. Significantly, by mass spectrometry methods, we found strong biological signatures of apoptosis directly in the postchemotherapy plasma, inc

SUBMITTER: Wiita AP 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4040605 | biostudies-literature | 2014 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature