Glioma Proteomics: Methods and Current Perspective

The Glioblastoma (WHO grade IV astrocytoma) is the most common and malignant primary adult brain cancer. The present standard treatment appears to be maximal safe resection of the tumor followed by irradiation and temozolomide adjuvant chemotherapy. Despite advances in treatment modalities, the median survival is very poor. In addition, recent molecular and genetic profiling studies using various genomic technologies have identified several markers and unique signatures as prognostic and predictive factors of GBM. However, none of them are translated into clinics. Thus with a requirement of additional more potent markers, proteomics appears to be more promising in particular for reasons like transcript levels does not correlate with protein levels due to variety of reasons like differences in translation efficiency, protein stability and miRNA regulation. The conventional methods like 2-dimensional gel electrophoresis have been in use for nearly last few decades. However, our ability to identify the proteins through mass spectrometry created renewed interest in proteomics. It is anticipated that the technological advancements happening in proteomics like gel free high throughput quantitative methods is going to revolutionize the biomarker discovery for classification, prognosis, monitoring treatment response and novel targets for better treatment besides understanding of glioma biology.