(PBC) is not a rare disease worldwide. Most patients are diagnosed at the advanced stage, primarily because there are not yet any valid biomarkers available for early diagnosis. Useful biomarkers are absolutely necessary for early detection of PBC. Fortunately, the use of MALDI-TOF-MS and pattern recognition software has been successful in finding specific markers for the early detection of the disease. To screen for potential protein biomarkers in the serum for diagnosing PBC, MALDI-TOF-MS combined with magnetic beads and pattern recognition software was used to investigate 119 serum samples from 44 patients with PBC, 32 controls with other hepatic disease, and 43 healthy controls. A total of 69 discriminant m/z peaks were identified as being associated with PBC. Of them, the m/z peaks at 3445, 4260, 8133, and 16,290 were used to construct a model for the diagnosis of PBC. This diagnostic model can distinguish PBC from non-PBC controls with a sensitivity of 93.3% and a specificity of 95.1%. In our blind test, it demonstrated good sensitivity and specificity: 92.9% and 82.4%, respectively. These results indicate that useful serum biomarkers for PBC can be discovered by MALDI-TOF-MS combined with the use of magnetic beads and pattern recognition software. The pattern of multiple markers provides a powerful and reliable diagnostic method for PBC with high sensitivity and specificity.
(c) 2009 Wiley-Liss, Inc.