Proteomics approach to illustrate drug action mechanisms

The recently developed proteomic technology features high-throughput parallel analysis of all proteins expressed from a genome, and thus opens up the possibility of providing details on the molecular mechanisms in a global level. Proteomic approaches combined with other biochemical methods can reconstruct regulatory networks, signaling cascades and metabolic pathways upon drug treatment. In this review, an overview will be given on recent progresses in proteomic research strategies that have an impact on drug discovery and their applications in illustrating action mechanisms of anticancer drugs including angiogenesis inhibitors, predicting drug resistance, and examining signaling pathways and phosphoproteome alterations upon drug treatment. The review concludes by exemplifying concrete data-driven studies in pharmaceutical research, which demonstrate the value of integrated proteomic platforms for drug target identification and validation, screening assay development, as well as the evaluations of drug candidate efficacy and toxicity.