Proteomics of traumatic brain injury and regeneration

Despite the enormous medical and economic consequences of traumatic brain injury (TBI), little is known about the proteins involved in the resulting pathology. Major advances in the identification of such proteins have been made in recent years through application of differential proteome analysis. Such an approach has revealed a number of novel proteins as potential regulators of the degenerative and regenerative processes that take place in the mammalian brain after a traumatic insult. Some of these proteins may serve as diagnostic and prognostic markers to assess the severity of the brain damage. Comparative proteome analysis of brain systems differing in their intrinsic regenerative potential are likely to provide new insights into the cellular signals that could be targeted for therapeutic intervention to increase the repair capacity of the human brain.