Applications of proteomics

Proteomics will lead to research breakthroughs allowing doctors to better diagnose and treat diseases. Those pursuing proteomics hope to find biological markers that signal disease, targets for drugs, and detailed understanding of biology on the molecular level. Proteomics may hold the key to personalized medicine.

Who does Proteomics?

People being people, it is not surprising that most proteomics research so far has been aimed at medical applications. This is not to say that you will see proteomics in your doctor's office. Proteomics is a research discipline that is carried out in laboratories at universities, government institutes, biotech firms and big pharma.

Proteomics and Nature vs Nurture

Proteomics has something to offer the long-standing debate about nature vs. nuture, heredity or environment.

Diseases show a continuum. Some, such as Down's Syndrome, are completely genetic in origin, while others, such as scurvy, are completely environmental. But most diseases — ulcers, for example — are somewhere in the middle: people with different genes will react differently to the same stressors.

Genomics can contribute most to treating genetic diseases (the left side of the figure below). Because proteins are created from genes, but the amount of a given protein is controlled by the environment, proteomics can shed useful information on the whole spectrum of diseases.

Proteomics Applications

• Scientific Knowledge - Proteomics has been used to study basic biological questions. For example, what is the structure of the pores between the nucleus and the cytoplasm of a cell?
• Diagnosis - Proteomics has looked at tumor biopsies and blood samples for indicators of cancer, birth defects, and other medical conditions. One diagnostic challenge is distinguishing between disorders with similar symptoms, but requiring different treatments.
• Monitoring - Proteomics can also search for biomarkers that indicate the stage of a disease, or the response of the patient to treatment.
• Drug Discovery - Most drugs target proteins, so it makes sense to use proteomic techniques to search for drug candidates.

Diagnosis Using Multiple Proteins

Some clinical tests look for an elevated level of a single protein, signaling a specific disease. Proteomics can be used to search for these biological markers for disease. Unfortunately, most diseases are not easy to diagnose with a single protein. Cancer researchers are now exploring an alternative approach: looking for a pattern of many different proteins. They hope that even though no single protein indicates the disease, the expression pattern of dozens of proteins may.

Proteomics and Personalized Medicine

• Some are cured.
• Some don't respond.
• Some experience a bad side effect.

The goal of personalized medicine is to test patients to determine which medicine will work for them without unpleasant side effects. To reach this goal, research is needed. Proteomics will fuel this drive toward niche drugs and targeted therapies.

Proteomics Beyond Medicine

Proteomics is also being applied to environmental and agricultural problems. For example proteomics is being used for studying food safety, the environmental effects of wheat development, sleep, and for fighting bioterrorists.

The lighter side of proteomics