Proteomics comparison between mass-like and non-mass-like breast lesions

BACKGROUND: The proteomic differences between mass-like (ML) breast lesions and non-mass-like (NML) breast lesions were compared to explore the formation mechanism of NML ultrasonic morphological characteristics. METHODS: From January to August 2021, tissue samples were collected from 10 patients with malignant ML (MML), 10 patients with malignant NML (MNML), 10 patients with benign ML (BML), and seven patients with benign NML (BNML). The proteomic differences between the BML and BNML groups and the MML and MNML groups were compared by data-independent acquisition (DIA) quantitative mass spectrometry. The differentially expressed proteins were analyzed by Gene Ontology (GO), Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG), and protein-protein interaction (PPI) networks analyses. RESULTS: We identified a total of 623 significantly differentially expressed proteins in the MML/MNML group, and 167 significantly differentially expressed proteins in the BML/BNML group, with relative ratios >1.2 or <−0.83. The up-regulated differential proteins were more abundant in the tumor necrosis factor (TNF) signaling pathway in both the MML/MNML and BML/BNML groups, suggesting that the TNF signaling pathway may be related to the ultrasonic morphological characteristics of breast lesions. Dual specificity mitogen-activated protein kinase 3 (MP2K3), a protein factor in the TNF signaling pathway, exhibited significant upregulation in both the malignant and BML groups. CONCLUSIONS: The TNF signaling pathway may be associated with the ultrasonic morphological characteristics of breast lesions. MP2K3 is the up-regulated differential expression protein in the MML/MNML and BML/BNML groups, which may be related to the ultrasonic morphological characteristics of breast lesions.