Proteomic technologies detection

Proteomic technologies promise to be of great value in molecular medicine, particularly in the detection and discovery of disease markers. Since it was demonstrated that there is a poor correlation between mRNA and protein... 

Apart from academic organizations, the NCI (National Cancer Institute) and FDA (Food and Drug Administration) have initiated a collaboration to focus on using proteomic technologies to develop more targeted treatments and more reliable diagnostic kits for early detection of cancer. In mid-2001, researchers analyzed a series of tumor cells from different patients and came up with a roster of proteins present in cancer cells. These are distinct molecules not found in normal cells. In early 2002, scientists involved in this program reported that it is possible to compare... 

Proteins are the functional units of a cell. They have constantly changing expression levels, locations, and PTMs that may be associated with the onset, progression, and remission of disease. Proteomic technologies (as described in Section 2) are used to detect patterns of differentially expressed proteins that have numerous potential clinical applications. Techniques such as 2D-PAGE and HPLC combined with MS can be used to identify proteins for early detection, diagnosis, prognosis, and response to treatment. 

Over the recent years, proteomic technologies evolved rapidly and now offer new perspectives in discovery of new cancer biomarkers based on the detection of low molecular weight proteins or peptides by MS. Two main peptidomic approaches are currently under investigation. These include pattern recognition and single/oligo biomarker detection. 

Over recent years, oncology has been a key focus of proteomic technologies as applied in both expression and functional studies. Expression proteomic studies are screening for differences in protein patterns between tumor and control tissues. Functional proteomic studies are defined as the combination of readouts with proteomics data from the same sample at different points of time (under different conditions), with the aim of detecting and prioritizing certain proteins or polypeptides of functional relevance. 

The popularity of aptamer-based assays has risen over the last several years in proteomics (25). Typical aptamers are single-stranded nucleic acids that can recognize target molecules. The general basis is similar to immuno-based methods. These aptamers are found by screening large libraries of nucleic acid sequences. This technology has been applied to several proteome-level detections (26-29). 

Stafford, P. 2006. Genomics, Transcriptomics, and Proteomics Novel Detection Technologies and Drug Discovery. In Biochips as Pathways to Drug Discovery (eds Carmen, A. and Hardiman, G.), CRC Press, Boca Raton, pp. 321—338. 

Disease Detection. One major application of proteomics is for disease detection. The National Cancer Institute is working on ways that proteomic technologies can be used for the detection of important proteins seen in disease. This technology would use biomarkers and target proteins that can be used to detect known diseases, including cancers, autoimmune disorders, and inflammatory diseases, as well as to screen for allei es. 

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