Salivary Proteomic Analysis of Canine Oral Melanoma by MALDI-TOF Mass Spectrometry and LC-Mass Spectrometry/Mass Spectrometry.

Canine oral melanoma (COM) is a common oral cancer with aggressiveness and high metastasis. A tumor in a dog's mouth makes it difficult to be observed at the early-clinical stage. Salivary biomarkers may be useful for early detection, prognosis, and monitoring of therapies. In addition, salivary collection is a simple and non-invasive technique. The present study describes how to identify salivary biomarkers in COM using matrix assisted laser desorption ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry/mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) approaches. Western blot analysis has been used to confirm the protein expression. The sequence of expressed protein from western blot has been verified by LC-MS/MS.