Clinical proteomics-driven precision medicine for targeted cancer therapy: current overview and future perspectives

ABSTRACT

Cancer is a common disease that is a leading cause of death worldwide. Currently, early detection and novel therapeutic strategies are urgently needed for more effective management of cancer. Importantly, protein profiling using clinical proteomic strategies, with spectacular sensitivity and precision, offer excellent promise for the identification of potential biomarkers that would direct the development of targeted therapeutic anticancer drugs for precision medicine. In particular, clinical sample sources, including tumor tissues and body fluids (blood, feces, urine and saliva), have been widely investigated using modern high-throughput mass spectrometry-based proteomic approaches combined with bioinformatic analysis, to pursue the possibilities of precision medicine for targeted cancer therapy. Discussed in this review are the current advantages and limitations of clinical proteomics, the available strategies of clinical proteomics for the management of precision medicine, as well as the challenges and future perspectives of clinical proteomics-driven precision medicine for targeted cancer therapy.

KEY WORDS:

• Clinical proteomics
• precision medicine
• cancer therapy
• mass spectrometry
• drug target identification

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by grants from the National 973 Basic Research Program of China (nos. 2013CB911300), the National Science and Technology Major Project (No. 2012ZX09501001-003), the Chinese NSFC (nos. 81225015, 81430071), and Sichuan Science-Technology Innovative Research Team for Young Scientist (2013TD0001).

Financial & competing interests disclosure

The authors have no 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. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties.