SELDI-TOF mass spectrometry for cancer biomarker discovery and serum proteomic diagnostics.

Proteomics is more than the identification of proteins that are altered in expression as a consequence of disease. Among the tools critical for the detection, treatment and monitoring of disease are biomarkers. The necessity for new methods to identify and validate biomarkers is underscored by the increased survival of patients diagnosed at early stages of cancer. Serum proteomic pattern diagnostics is a new technique in which proteomic signatures are used as a diagnostic classifier. Surface-enhanced laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry has shown promise as a modality for biomarker discovery of early-stage cancers. Mass spectrometry-derived protein signatures have been modeled and are now moving into validation. Further sequencing of these key features can lead to new insights into disease etiology and intervention.