Objective To identify the differentially expressed proteins in patients of granulomatous lobular mastitis（GLM） and screen the biomarkers that related to GLM， then to verify some key molecule according to the results. Methods

The lesion tissues and adjacent normal tissues following surgical removal of affected tissues were collected from 3 GLM

patients. Then the quantitative proteomics TMT technology was used to detect and quantitatively analyze the differentially

expressed proteins， and to conduct functional analysis. Uniprot database and proteome discoverer software were applied to

analyze the bioinformatic. The concentrations of key cytokine were analyzed by human antibody array. Results In this

study，1 405 differentially expressed proteins were identified including 1 106 upregulated proteins and 299 downregulated

proteins in GLM. Gene ontology （GO） annotation and functional cluster analyses showed that these differentially expressed

proteins mainly involved in cellular processes， metabolic processes， protein metabolism， biological regulation. KEGG

pathway analysis showed these differentially expressed proteins were mainly enriched in complement activation， immune system， inflammatory response. Cytokine quantitative analysis confirmed the increased expression of IL-1β， MCP2 and IL-6

in GLM tissures. Conclusion Differentially expressed proteins in granulomatous mastitis are involved in related signaling

pathways and may be key molecules in the development of granulomatous mastitis. Specific proteins are the potential 

Granulomatous mastitis, Bioinformatics, Tandem mass tag, Proteomics, Antibody array technology