Πρωτεωμική ανάλυση βιολογικών δειγμάτων για την ανάδειξη βιοδεικτών του καρκίνου

Abstract

The various forms of cancer is a major public health problem of the modern societies. Several environmental and genetic factors have been recognized to be responsible for the occurrence of cancer and key biological mechanisms involved have been revealed as well. However, early diagnosis, prognosis of progression and the identification of pharmacological therapeutic targets remain partially ineffective fields in clinical practice despite the fact that studies focusing on these areas are increasing rapidly. This is largely due to the complexity and diversity of both the disease and the genetic constitution of individuals and hence of the biological samples. Therefore, the main characteristics that an experimental approach should concentrate in order to provide solutions to such questions should be, holisticity, accuracy, sensitivity, cross-verification and the use of well-characterized biological samples. State of the art proteomics based on mass spectrometry is a useful tool for the first step in this direction which is the identification of potential biomarkers which then should be tested for their sensitivity and specificity using simple and validated biochemical techniques in inter-laboratory assays. This study, presents novel applications of combined state of the art proteomic techniques for the in-depth analysis and characterization of biological specimens such as tissue and blood serum for the determination of potential biomarkers of diagnosis, prognosis and pharmacological response for breast cancer and prostate cancer as well. The analysis of biological samples was based on the principles of multidimensional liquid chromatography combined with tandem mass spectrometry. The study resulted in the qualitative and semi-quantitative determination of a large number of proteins that extensively covers the proteome of tissues from breast biopsies and blood serum compared with the data available in current bibliography. Finally, proteins with differences in expression between the different biological states studied were identified with potential in diagnosis, prognosis and pharmacological response that consist innovative findings amenable to further study.