Proteomics for Cancer: Approaches and Challenges

The draft human genome sequence was available in 2003. It is now basic knowledge that there are similar to 20,300 protein coding genes in the human genome which undergo regulated transcription and posttranscriptional processing to generate several mRNA. These in turn are translated and posttranslationally modified to generate over two million or more protein products which are the actual work horses in the cell. The comprehensive analysis of these proteins, i.e. their identity, characteristics, amino acid variations, location, turnover, proteolytic processing, posttranslational modifications and subunit associations, is the realm of proteomics. This chapter will focus on the major developments in technology which have contributed to the evolution of proteomics and the use of these for understanding cancer biology with the aim to generate data which will translate from the bench to the clinic.