Detection of circulating anti-mucin 1 (MUC1) antibodies in breast tumor patients by indirect enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay using a recombinant MUC1 protein containing six tandem repeats and expressed in Escherichia coli.

Mucin 1 (MUC1), a tumor-associated antigen, is a transmembrane glycoprotein expressed by normal epithelial cells and overexpressed by carcinomas of epithelial origin. Autoantibodies against MUC1 are often found in circulation, either free or bound to immune complexes, which might contribute to limit tumor outgrowth and dissemination by antibody-dependent cell-mediated cytotoxicity, and were found favorably predictive of survival in early breast cancer patients. There is no commercial enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) kit for detecting the anti-MUC1 antibodies in human serum thus far. To detect circulating anti-MUC1 antibodies, we established an indirect ELISA (I-ELISA) using a recombinant MUC1 protein containing six tandem repeat sequences of MUC1 after the antigenicity and specificity of the protein were confirmed. The I-ELISA had a sensitivity of 91.3% and a specificity of 94.1% when a competitive I-ELISA was used as a reference test. The results showed that more patients with benign breast tumors (P = 0.001) and breast cancer patients before primary treatment (P = 0.010) were found to have anti-MUC1 IgG than healthy women; anti-MUC1 IgG before primary treatment was found more than after primary treatment (P = 0.016) in breast cancer patients. Interestingly, the anti-MUC1 IgG serum level was reversely correlated to that of CA15-3 antigen in advanced-stage patients (r = -0.4294, P = 0.046). Our study has demonstrated the suitability of the established I-ELISA for detecting circulating anti-MUC1 antibodies in human serum. Furthermore, we found that circulating anti-MUC1 antibodies may still bind MUC1 shed into blood in stage IV breast cancer, which can support the use of MUC1-target immune therapy strategies.