Proteomic approaches for serum biomarker discovery in cancer

Monitoring the protein expression pattern in tumour cells by proteomics technologies offers opportunities to discover potentially new biomarkers for the early detection and diagnosis of cancer. Different proteomic tools such as 2D-PAGE, 2D-DIGE, SELDI-ToF-MS technology, protein arrays, ICAT, iTRAQ and MudPIT have been used for differential analysis of various biological samples, including cell lysates, cell secretome (conditioned medium), serum, plasma, tumour tissue and nipple aspirate fluid, to better understand the molecular basis of cancer pathogenesis and the validation and characterisation of disease-associated proteins. In recent years, there has been a large increase in cancer-related publications dealing with new biomarker discovery for cancer, therefore, in this review we have focused on the contribution of proteomics technologies in serum and conditioned medium-based oncology research particularly for lung, breast, melanoma and pancreatic cancer.