Label-free quantitative proteomic analysis of human plasma-derived microvesicles to find protein signatures of abdominal aortic aneurysms

Purpose: To find potential biomarkers of abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAA), we performed a differential proteomic study based on human plasma-derived microvesicles. Experimental design: Exosomes and microparticles isolated from plasma of AAA patients and control subjects (n = 10 each group) were analyzed by a label-free quantitative MS-based strategy. Homemade and publicly available software packages have been used for MS data analysis. Results: The application of two kinds of bioinformatic tools allowed us to find differential protein profiles from AAA patients. Some of these proteins found by the two analysis methods belong to main pathologicalmechanisms of AAA such as oxidative stress, immune-inflammation, and thrombosis. Conclusions and clinical relevance: Data analysis from label-free MS-based experiments requires the use of sophisticated bioinformatic approaches to perform quantitative studies from complex protein mixtures. The application of two of these bioinformatic tools provided us a preliminary list of differential proteins found in plasma-derived microvesicles not previously associated to AAA, which could help us to understand the pathological mechanisms related to this disease.