Proteomic approaches to cancer target identification

The advent of proteomics brings hope of discovering novel targets for use in the screening, early diagnosis, prediction of response to therapy and prognosis of cancer. In recent years, substantial technological advances in proteomics have revealed the complexity and heterogeneity of the human proteome, permitting the quantitative analysis and identification of protein changes associated with cancer. Application of a range of proteomic approaches to the measurement of secreted protein analytes identifies markers and can be used alongside other techniques such as imaging. Tumor-associated biomarkers that can be determined via proteomic approaches represent a subset of possible cancer targets. To achieve this, several proteomic approaches including two-dimensional polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, mass spectrometry and protein microarray have been developed and are being used in different combinations. This review provides an overview of the proteomic approaches available for cancer target identification and reviews recent analyses of protein expression in various cancers.

Section editors:Victoria Heath and Roy Bicknell – University of Birmingham, Institute for Biomedical Research, The Medical School, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK