Development of a Time-Resolved Fluorescence Immunoassay for the Diagnosis of Hepatocellular Carcinoma Based on the Detection of Glypican-3

Glypican-3(GPC3), an oncofetal protein, is a potential novel marker for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). In this study, we attempted to establish a new method to detect serum GPC3 using the antibodies identified in our previous research, and then evaluated its clinical application for the diagnosis of HCC. Herein, a sandwich time-resolved fluorescence immunoassay (TRFIA) for detecting serum GPC3 was developed. The detection limit, analytical recovery, specificity and precision of the proposed TRFIA assay were satisfactory. A total of 415 patients were collected and divided into seven groups: hepatocellular carcinoma (101), colorectal cancer (67), gastric cancer (44), esophageal cancer (15), cirrhosis (55), hepatitis (61), normal liver (72). Using this proposed method, the concentration of serum GPC3 in these clinical samples was detected. The results demonstrated that the levels of GPC3 in serum from HCC patients were significantly higher than that in others. Compared with the results of chemiluminescence immunoassay (CLIA), a high consistency (Kappa =0.84) was observed. Thus, an effective, sensitive and reliable TRFIA-GPC3 kit for diagnosing HCC was successfully developed. It offers a suitable alternative to existed methods of determining GPC3 and is expected to be used in clinic in the future.