Researchers have used lab technology called mass spectrometry to study the proteins expressed by human cancer cells. The advance, which is described in a new Molecular Oncology article, allows for the quantitation of thousands of tumour proteins over the course of several hours.
The strategy was used to identify several proteins that were over-expressed in a rare form of bladder cancer that did not respond to chemotherapy.
The findings reveal that proteomics–the large scale study of all proteins in a given system–has the potential to quickly provide robust personalised therapeutic options for cancer patients in which standard clinical options have been exhausted.
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