Proteomic Analysis of Blood Plasma

The term "proteome" refers to the entire complement of proteins, including

the modifications made to a particular set of proteins, produced by an
organism or a cellular system. This will vary with time and distinct
requirements, such as stresses, that a cell or organism undergoes. The
term "proteomics" is a large-scale comprehensive study of a specific
proteome, including information on protein abundances, their variations and
modifications, along with their interacting partners and networks, in order to
understand cellular processes.Clinical proteomics is a sub-discipline of
proteomics that involves the application of proteomic technologies on clinical
specimens such as blood, Cancer, in particular, is a model disease for
applying such technologies to identify unique biosignatures and biomarkers
responsible for the diagnosis, prognosis and therapeutic prediction of such
disease. With the advent of mass spectrometry based high throughput
proteomic technologies, protein markers have gained attention as it is
feasible to compare the proteome of diseased and healthy individuals and
identify differentially expressed proteins that could potentially act as disease
markers. Biomarkers are biological molecules found in blood, other body
fluids, or tissues that are a sign of a normal or abnormal process, or of a
condition or disease. They may also be used to see how well the body
responds to a treatment for a disease or condition.

Blood is an extremely popular source for biological samples for proteomic

analysis leading to the identification of biomarkers. Determination of the
protein constituents of human plasma has been an active area of research
for several years. Blood plasma is an exceptional proteome in many respects.
It is the most complex human-derived proteome, containing other tissue
proteomes as subsets. It is collected in huge amounts (millions of liters) for
preparation of protein therapeutic products. It is the most difficult protein-
containing sample to characterize on account of the large proportion of
albumin (55%), the wide dynamic range in abundance of other proteins, and
the tremendous heterogeneity of its predominant glycoproteins. And it is the
most sampled proteome, with hundreds of millions of tubes withdrawn every
year for medical diagnosis, making it clinically the most important. Proteins
in plasma have been studied since before we knew genes existed.

Mass spectral methods became popular in the analysis of plasma, as it

became increasingly possible to detect very low amounts of peptides and
proteins.