Opportunities and challenges for nutritional proteomics in cancer prevention

Knowledge gaps persist about the efficacy of cancer prevention strategies based on dietary food components. Adaptations to nutrient supply are executed through tuning of multiple protein networks that include transcription factors, histones, modifying enzymes, translation factors, membrane and nuclear receptors, and secreted proteins. However, the simultaneous quantitative and qualitative measurement of all proteins that regulate cancer processes is not practical using traditional protein methodologies. Proteomics offers an attractive opportunity to fill this knowledge gap and unravel the effects of dietary components on protein networks that impinge on cancer. The articles presented in this supplement are from talks proffered in the "Nutrition Proteomics and Cancer Prevention" session at the American Institute for Cancer Research Annual Research Conference on Food, Nutrition, Physical Activity and Cancer held in Washington, DC on October 21 and 22, 2010. Recent advances in MS technologies suggest that studies in nutrition and cancer prevention may benefit from the adoption of proteomic tools to elucidate the impact on biological processes that govern the transition from normal to malignant phenotype; to identify protein changes that determine both positive and negative responses to food components; to assess how protein networks mediate dose-, time-, and tissue-dependent responses to food components; and, finally, for predicting responders and nonresponders. However, both the limited accessibility to proteomic technologies and research funding appear to be hampering the routine adoption of proteomic tools in nutrition and cancer prevention research.