Biomarker discovery in neurodegenerative diseases: a proteomic approach

Biomarkers for neurodegenerative disorders are essential to facilitate disease diagnosis, ideally at early stages, monitor disease progression, and assess response to existing and future treatments. Application of proteomics to the human brain, cerebrospinal fluid and plasma has greatly hastened the unbiased and high-throughput searches for novel biomarkers. There are many steps critical to biomarker discovery, whether for neurodegenerative or other diseases, including sample preparation, protein/peptide separation and identification, as well as independent confirmation and validation. In this review we have summarized current proteomics technologies involved in discovery of biomarkers for neurodegenerative diseases, practical considerations and limitations of several major aspects, as well as the current status of candidate biomarkers revealed by proteomics for Alzheimer and Parkinson diseases.