Cancer biomarkers are integral to current oncological practice and have the potential to impact all aspects of patient care. In particular, markers that allow accurate risk stratification and optimal choice of therapy for individual patients are emerging as central to improving patient outlook. Whilst proteomic technologies have improved significantly in recent years, serum proteomics continues to pose challenges in overcoming its vast dynamic range of protein concentrations. Profiling conditioned media (CM) of cancer cell lines provides an attractive alternative, since it is potentially enriched for tumour derived secreted proteins and, as such, represents a rich source of potential biomarkers. The approach has been widely adopted by researchers across all aspects of cancer marker discovery. Here, we highlight promising examples of such work and discuss the potential pitfalls associated with studying CM. Ultimately, it is imperative that candidate markers are adequately validated in annotated clinical specimens to render the research worthwhile.

Neural tube defect (NTDs) is the most severe from of congenital malformation of central nervous system leading to infant mortality and morbidity. The most common form of NTDs is anencephaly (spina bifida) and myelomeningocele. The incidence in the population varies depending on racial/ethical variation including genetic and unknown environmental factors. The etiopathology of NTDs is still unknown between two different gene, hence present study has been designed with the aims to evaluate gene mutation between tumour suppressor gene and leukaemia inhibitory factor during organogenesis. We have collected the blood samples (n= 43) of clinically diagnosed NTDs with respective controls (n= 46) for PCR based DNA analysis to evaluate the frequency of p53 and LIF gene mutation using specific primers. Present findings reveals that highly significant differences (P<0.05) were observed in LIF gene using two different exons confirming p53 gene inactivation influences neural ectoderm proliferation result increased “risk factor” for the development of NTDs.