ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Immunol.
Sec. Antigen Presenting Cell Biology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2025.1580219
Identification of Potential Prognostic Biomarkers of Thymoma with Myasthenia Gravis Based on Serum Proteomics
Provisionally accepted
- People’s Hospital of Shijiazhuang affiliated to Hebei Medical University, shijiazhuang, China
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Background: Thymoma is often accompanied by myasthenia gravis (MG), and the resection of thymoma improves myasthenic symptoms in patients with thymoma and MG (TMG), but some patients still have no relief. Through proteomic analysis, we examined preoperative serum samples from patients with TMG to identify key prognostic proteins that could serve as a foundation for clinically predicting postoperative efficacy and guiding treatment selection.Method: According to the Clinical Research Guidelines of the Myasthenia Gravis Association of America (MGFA) for Post-Intervention Status (PIS), 20 patients with TMG were divided into an effective group (T1): the PIS was minimal manifestation status (MMS) and above, and the ineffective group (T2): the PIS did not reach MMS and above, with 10 cases each, and a healthy control group (C) with 9 cases. Blood samples from the three groups were collected through Data independent acquisition (DIA) proteomic analysis performed by mass spectrometry to identify differential proteins expressed and search for key proteins associated with myasthenia prognosis.Finally, the target proteins were validated through the utilization of Enzyme-Linked ImmunoSorbent Assay (ELISA).Results: 514 proteins were identified in this research. Between the T1 and T2 groups, there were 20 proteins that exhibited differential expression, with 10 showing up-regulation and 10 displaying down-regulation. KEGG functional annotation indicated that these proteins were mainly involved in signaling pathways such as complement and coagulation cascade, prion disease, systemic lupus erythematosus, neutrophil extracellular trap formation, and transcription dysregulation in cancer. 3 proteins were discovered to have a significant correlation with the prognosis of TMG, L-selectin (SELL) was down-regulated, HLA class I histocompatibility antigen (HLA-A) and Complement 5 (C5) were up-regulated. ELISA results confirmed the proteomic results.HLA-A, C5 and SELL may be potential prognostic biomarkers of TMG. This study may provide a more accurate prognostic risk assessment for TMG patients to help clinicians better individualise the initial treatment regimen for patients with different risk stratification, plan a more reasonable frequency of follow-up visits, and make more precise maintenance treatment decisions, thereby improving the overall prognosis of TMG patients.
Keywords: Thymoma, Myasthenia Gravis, Proteomics, prognostic, biomarkers
Received: 24 Feb 2025; Accepted: 26 May 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Lin, Qi and Liu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Guoyan Qi, People’s Hospital of Shijiazhuang affiliated to Hebei Medical University, shijiazhuang, China
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