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Background. Breast carcinoma is one of most prevalent malignant tumors occurring in women. Short of prevention, detection of breast carcinoma at an early, still curable stage would offer the best route to decrease its mortality rates. This highlights the urgent need for suitable biomarkers for early diagnosis and a better understanding of the disease pathogenesis. Material and methods. NMPs were extracted from normal human breast tissue (Group I), from hyperplastic mammary tissue specimens (Group II), from atypical epithelial hyperplasia specimens (Group III), and from breast carcinoma (Group IV) tissue. Differential proteome profiles were established and analyzed by means of immobilized pH gradient-based two-dimensional polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (2D-PAGE) and matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF-MS). The different NMPs were analyzed in the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) database with Mascot software. Results. Well-resolved, reproducible 2-DE profiles of human breast tissues were obtained. Average protein spots were 904 ± 58, 912 ± 51, 931 ± 63, 944 ± 70 in Group I, Group II, Group III, and Group IV, respectively. Several different proteins were analyzed using mass spectrometry and bioinformation. Of these, 12 were well characterized. Compared to Group I, three proteins were up-regulated in Groups II, III, and IV, including Hsp27, prohibitin, and laminA/C. Upregulation was confirmed using Western blotting and immunohistochemical analysis. The correlation of prohibitin expression with clinicopathological features was also investigated. Discussion. The proteins identified in this study may potentially prove to be useful markers for breast carcinoma diagnosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]