Proteomics and Schizophrenia: The Evolution of a Great Partnership

The mass spectrometer is an instrument that observes particular masses of molecules of interest. Over the past century, it has grown to become a highly sensitive and robust tool in laboratorial and clinical research to identify and quantify thousands of proteins in a given sample in an unbiased manner leading to the quick rise in its use. This unbiased and high-throughput nature is extremely important in discovery-based studies, since no preset targets can be selected, as is the case with several other proteomic methods. In studying multifactorial diseases such as schizophrenia, mass-spectrometry-based proteomics has been frequently used and new improvements to the technique have been quickly taken advantage of. Over the past 15 years, mass spectrometry has evolved greatly, and with it, the proteomic analyses and data have evolved. In this chapter, a brief history of the evolution of mass spectrometry is covered along with how schizophrenia research has grown alongside this valuable methodology.