Deleted in malignant brain tumors 1 protein is a potential biomarker of acute respiratory distress syndrome induced by pneumonia

Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is associated with high mortality and morbidity. Early diagnosis and risk stratification in patients with ARDS should improve prognosis. Unfortunately, no clinical biomarkers are available for use in early diagnosis. Quantitative proteomics is a powerful tool for biomarker discovery in cancer, autoimmune diseases, and ARDS. Here, we employed isobaric tags for relative and absolute quantitation (iTRAQ) technology to identify potential biomarkers for early ARDS diagnosis and predict the risk for increased disease severity induced by pneumonia. We collected the bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) and plasma from ARDS patients with differing degrees of ARDS severity. We identified 338 proteins dysregulated in ARDS through iTRAQ, 18 of which showed significant differences with at least 1.5-fold differential expression in patients with mild or severe ARDS. Differential plasma expression of pulmonary surfactant associated protein A, apolipoprotein A1, and deleted in malignant brain tumors 1 protein (DMBT1) was verified in plasma samples. Our results indicate that DMBT1 can potentially serve as a biomarker for early ARDS diagnosis and disease severity assessment.