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ABSTRACT
Introduction: Cancer is one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide. A hallmark of cancer is evasion of apoptosis leading to tumor progression and drug resistance. Biomarker research has become a sign of the times, and proteins involved in apoptosis may be used for clinical diagnostic or prognostic purposes in cancer treatment. The recent progress in proteomic technology has triggered an emerging number of researchers to study the molecular mechanisms that regulate the apoptotic signal transduction pathways in cancer.
Areas covered: A PubMed search for ‘Proteomics’ and ‘cancer’ and ‘chemotherapy’ and ‘apoptosis’ has been conducted for literature until December 2017.
Results: The study of apoptotic protein signatures in cancer provides valuable information for more effective prognosis, response to therapy and the identification of novel drug targets. A huge number of bioinformatic tools are available to interpret raw data. For quantification, mass spectrometry is the most reliable technique.
Expert commentary: This field of research is, however, still in its infancy and more intensive research is warranted to explore the full potential of biomarkers for clinical use. Progress in this field is influenced by the detection limit of current quantification methods as well as patient and cancer inter-individual profiles.
Declaration of interest
J. Naß has received PhD stipend from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG GRK 2015/1). The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed. Peer reviewers on this manuscript have no relevant financial or other relationships to disclose.