Prostate cancer (PCa) is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in males. Early PCa usually shows no clinical symptoms and its primary diagnosis is currently guided by liquid-biopsy testing of serum prostate-specific antigen (PSA). This testing suffers from high false-positive and false-negative rates. Identifying new biomarkers for precise liquid-biopsy detection of PCa is, thus, an acute clinical request. Here, by using an advanced dual-functional aptamer assay, we quantified the extent of glycosylation of PSA circulating in cancer patients’ serum, linked it to cancer-related breakage of PSA complexes with serum-circulating proteins, and proved its facility for stratification of primary and metastatic PCa. PSA’s “Glycan Score” 100% accurately informed about PCa status in a 30-patient cohort, while serum PSA’s concentration correctly classified only 53% of PCa patients and did not inform about their PCa status. The Glycan Score liquid-biopsy test thus has a huge potential for accurate diagnosis and staging of PCa, enabling mass-screening program progress and advanced PCa treatment monitoring.

中文翻译：

---

液体活检聚糖评分生物标志物可准确指示原发性和转移性前列腺癌并对其进行分层


前列腺癌 （PCa） 是男性中最常见的癌症。早期 PCa 通常没有临床症状，其初步诊断目前以血清前列腺特异性抗原 （PSA） 的液体活检检测为指导。这种测试的假阳性率和假阴性率很高。因此，确定用于精确液体活检检测 PCa 的新生物标志物是一项紧迫的临床要求。在这里，通过使用先进的双功能适配体测定，我们量化了癌症患者血清中循环的 PSA 的糖基化程度，将其与 PSA 复合物与血清循环蛋白的癌症相关断裂联系起来，并证明了其对原发性和转移性 PCa 分层的能力。PSA 的“聚糖评分”100% 准确地告知了 30 名患者队列中的 PCa 状态，而血清 PSA 浓度仅正确分类了 53% 的 PCa 患者，并且没有告知他们的 PCa 状态。因此，聚糖评分液体活检测试在准确诊断和分期 PCa 方面具有巨大潜力，可实现大规模筛查计划进展和先进的 PCa 治疗监测。