Advances in ovarian cancer proteomics: the quest for biomarkers and improved therapeutic interventions

Epithelial ovarian cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related death among gynecological cancers due to the asymptomatic nature of the disease, a lack of early detection markers and the development of resistance to current chemotherapeutic agents. Currently available tests (CA-125, transvaginal ultrasound or combination of both) lack the sensitivity and specificity to be useful as an efficient screening tool for surveillance of the general population. Thus, there is an urgent need for the development and validation of new molecular markers that would be both specific and sensitive indicators of disease onset, as well as progression. Proteomic profiling has emerged as a powerful tool to study ovarian cancer in an unbiased way at the molecular level, to monitor the effects of given treatment options and for the discovery of biomarkers. In this review we discuss the challenges associated with proteomics-based biomarker discovery and some recent concepts to potentially overcome these hurdles. Recent proteomics work on ovarian cancer cells and tissues will be discussed in light of obtaining new insights into fundamental biological processes, as well as their potential integration with ongoing biomarker discovery pipelines.