Methodological advances in the discovery of protein and peptide disease markers

The quest for biomarkers has seen a renaissance due to the application of newly developed separation methodologies and advances in biomolecular mass spectrometry. It can be argued that each disease influences the physiology of an organism and that these changes should be measurable. Many diagnostic and therapeutic decisions are supported by measurable biochemical or cellular changes in plasma, serum or urine but it is unquestionable that there is a great lack in better markers for early disease detection and prevention. In this review we cover recent developments in the areas of separation science, sample preparation and mass spectrometry as applied to biomarker discovery. We focus, in particular, on the use of LC-MS and SELDI-TOF-MS as two approaches that have seen an upswing in recent years. While validation of newly discovered biomarkers or biomarker patterns and their introduction into diagnostic practice will be a long process, it is our believe that many future diagnostic tests will be based on markers discovered through novel profiling technologies as those outlined in this article.