[Clinical proteomics in laboratory medicine].
During the past few years, the emphasis on genomics has shifted via transcriptomics to proteomics, the science of understanding how the whole set of proteins are expressed and function at the cellular level. Recent progress in clinical proteomics is mostly thanks to sophisticated new methodologies for proteome analyses. In search for novel biomarkers for cancers and other disorders, we have taken advantage of the surface-enhanced laser/desorption ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (SELDI-TOF MS) and the MALDI-TOF/TOF. Since personal and verbal reporting of alcohol use is not necessarily accurate, objective markers to assess alcohol consumption are required. We used the ProteinChip SELDI technology to generate comparative protein profiles of the consecutive serum samples obtained during abstinence and found that a 5.9kD peptide detected and identified by this technology could be a novel marker of heavy alcohol consumption. Recent advances in two-dimensional electrophoresis (2-DE) such as fluorescent 2-D differential gel electrophoresis (2-D DIGE) has made it possible to detect and quantitate the critical changes involved in disease pathogenesis. We could identify novel proteins with altered expression in primary esophageal cancer using the powerful method of agarose 2-DE and agarose 2-D DIGE. A number of proteins with altered expression between cancer and adjacent non-cancer tissues were identified. Among them, a 195-kDa protein, periplakin, was significantly downregulated in esophageal cancer, which was confirmed by immunoblotting and immunohistochemistry. Clinical proteomics consists of the discovery proteomics and the measurement proteomics. Although we still stand at the discovery proteomics, undoubtedly, the clinical proteomics will be a major contributor in laboratory medicine in the near future.
Nomura
Fumio
F
Department of Molecular Diagnosis, Graduate School of Medicine, Chiba University, Chiba 260-8670.
D019411:Clinical Laboratory Techniques; D006801:Humans; D040901:Proteomics / Q000379:methods*