A path or a new road in laboratory diagnostics? Biological mass spectrometry: facts and perspectives.

Proteins in tissues and biofluids and their many attributes define the proteome. Proteome can be directly correlated to known diseases and histological regions allowing the diagnosis and monitoring of disease progression as well predicting the patient's response to specific treatments. Proteomics performs large-scale, high-throughput characterization of the human proteome, among others by biological mass spectrometry. Proteinchip technology coupled with bioinformatics is able to screen any protein source for putative disease biomarkers from a small sample volume (microliter range) by surface-enhanced laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (SELDI-TOF MS). This article discusses on a basic level both the technology and reliability of these methods.