ИСТИНА

Serum autoantibodies against tumor-associated antigens (TAA) is a promising class of cancer biomarkers that has been extensively studied for all common human neoplasms. However, protein targets of humoral immune response in patients with endocrine tumors and thyroid neoplasms in particular remain poorly explored. We focused our research efforts on encapsulated follicular-patterned thyroid tumors of different malignant potential, with an emphasis on stratification of patients based on fine histopathological analysis. We found that both the number of autoantigens recognized by serum immunoglobulins from individual patients and frequency of autoantibodies against individual TAA gradually increase from benign through borderline and further to overtly malignant tumors. We identified a number of diagnostically relevant TAA represented by proteins involved in metabolism of fatty acids, steroids and ketone bodies, as well as RNA splicing and protein folding. Our data improve our understanding of immune response to endocrine tumors and provide the basis for a novel non-invasive strategy of differential diagnosis of thyroid neoplasms. The work is supported by research grant 13-04-01265-a from Russian Foundation for Basic Research and by «Basic Sciences for Medicine» program of the Russian Academy of Sciences.