Pancreatic cancer: proteomic approaches to a challenging disease

To describe progress in the application of proteomic approaches to advance our understanding of the biology of pancreatic cancer as well as contribute potential protein biomarkers for this disease.

Here we review proteomic studies relating to pancreatic cancer that have been published in the past 12 months. We describe novel techniques for the simplification of complex protein samples, focusing particularly on emerging methods for reducing the complexity of blood. We provide examples, where possible, of the application of these novel technologies to pancreatic cancer research.

Both the range of proteomic-based approaches and their sensitivities for the detection of low-abundance proteins has increased. This provides promise that further research will yield insight into pancreatic cancer, including valuable information on proteins that may ultimately serve as biomarkers for pancreatic cancer.