Application of the Mass Spectrometry–High-Throughput Technique Over the Immunohistochemical Analysis for Human Brain Tumor Diagnosis and Prognosis: Insights Into Biomarkers' Identification for the Case Study of Grade IV Astrocytomas and Meningiomas

Abstract

Human brain tumors were commonly monitored in hospital/clinical laboratories by immunohistochemistry (IHC) technique, which provides major insights into their classification. However, this technique remains laborious and still shows pitfalls. Therefore, the current study was endeavored to reveal the assets of the application of high-throughput mass spectrometry (MS) for medical diagnosis. In this study, we focused on the Grade IV astrocytoma and meningioma brain tumors. The collected specimens were first monitored for histopathological diagnosis, followed by IHC staining for the characterization of stemness gene marker, then analyzed by a shotgun proteomic–based approach with high-resolution tandem MS. The IHC analysis only confirmed the histopathological diagnosis, whereas the proteomic analysis unraveled several differently expressed proteins. By bioinformatics, the major enriched pathways and the significance of each protein with its meaningful relationships were identified. The key hub genes were allied for prognostic biomarkers of malignant, metastatic, and invasive forms of cancer with poor prognosis. Overall, the high-throughput MS technique is the most powerful tool to achieve medical analysis at high sensitivity and accuracy and in a very straightforward and timely manner. Hence, its medical implementation in the hospital management system is imperative to counteract the caveats of traditional diagnostic methods and improve the quality of healthcare performance and therapeutic targets.