A novel autoantibody signatures for enhanced clinical diagnosis of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma

BACKGROUND: Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is a devastating disease that requires precise diagnosis for effective treatment. However, the diagnostic value of carbohydrate antigen 19 − 9 (CA19-9) is limited. Therefore, this study aims to identify novel tumor-associated autoantibodies (TAAbs) for PDAC diagnosis. METHODS: A three-phase strategy comprising discovery, test, and validation was implemented. HuProt™ Human Proteome Microarray v3.1 was used to screen potential TAAbs in 49 samples. Subsequently, the levels of potential TAAbs were evaluated in 477 samples via enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) in PDAC, benign pancreatic diseases (BPD), and normal control (NC), followed by the construction of a diagnostic model. RESULTS: In the discovery phase, protein microarrays identified 167 candidate TAAbs. Based on bioinformatics analysis, fifteen tumor-associated antigens (TAAs) were selected for further validation using ELISA. Ten TAAbs exhibited differentially expressed in PDAC patients in the test phase (P < 0.05), with an area under the curve (AUC) ranging from 0.61 to 0.76. An immunodiagnostic model including three TAAbs (anti-HEXB, anti-TXLNA, anti-SLAMF6) was then developed, demonstrating AUCs of 0.81 (58.0% sensitivity, 86.0% specificity) and 0.78 (55.71% sensitivity, 87.14% specificity) for distinguishing PDAC from NC. Additionally, the model yielded AUCs of 0.80 (58.0% sensitivity, 86.25% specificity) and 0.83 (55.71% sensitivity, 100% specificity) for distinguishing PDAC from BPD in the test and validation phases, respectively. Notably, the combination of the immunodiagnostic model with CA19-9 resulted in an increased positive rate of PDAC to 92.91%. CONCLUSION: The immunodiagnostic model may offer a novel serological detection method for PDAC diagnosis, providing valuable insights into the development of effective diagnostic biomarkers. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12935-023-03107-1.