Abstract: Objective Prostate cancer and benign prostatic hyperplasia(BPH) can not be differentiated by serum prostate-specific antigen (PSA) in clinical medicine, especially when the level of PSA is in the range of 4 μg/L~10 μg/L. To find out some methods for differential diagnosis, proteomic analysis was made on proteins precipitated from urine specimens of patients with benign prostatic hyperplasia and prostate cancer. Methods Proteins were precipitated with acetone from urine specimens of 3 cases with benign prostatic hyperplasia, 3 cases with prostate cancer, and 3 healthy persons. Then proteins were separated with two-dimensional polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis(2D-PAGE). The proteins were identified by peptide mass fingerprinting. Results Via the analysis, 20 spots were obtained and a total of 17 different proteins were identified, including serum albumin, plasma retinol-binding protein precursor etc. Conclusion Proteomic analysis of urinary protein is a promising tool to study benign prostatic hyperplasia and may become a potential diagnostic biomarker.

Key words: two-dimensional polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, proteomics, peptide finger printing, benign prostatic hyperplasia