[Proteomic approach in gastrointestinal and liver research]

In the post-genomic era, the focus of research is now moving to functional genomics employing the information on predicted gene products provided by genome sequencing. Proteomics, the global analysis of structures, functions, and interactions of whole cellular proteins, draws the special attention as a tool for documenting the disease pathogenesis or progression. The high-throughput technology has become feasible by considerable improvement of two dimensional electrophoresis and mass fingerprinting. Thus proteome techniques can be used as tools to study the disease processes, develop new biomakers for diagnosis and early detection of diseases, and accelerate drug development. In this review, we discuss the background and techniques of proteomics, and potential applications to the research of gastrointestinal diseases.