Mesopore-assisted profiling strategies in clinical proteomics for drug/target discovery.

Mass spectrometry (MS)-profiling of human bodily fluids is a new approach for the discovery of novel disease biomarkers and, consequently, of new druggable targets. However, the complexity and the high dynamic range of biological samples make the characterization of endogenous peptides and/or proteins a challenging task. To this end, the introduction of new technologies, enabling sample pre-fractionation and/or pre-treatment before MS, could be useful. Progress in the field of nanostructured materials has provided innovative devices, particularly those based on mesoporous silica, which have proved to be successful. The ability to address new emerging material-based MS-profiling platforms will ultimately determine how deeply nanotechnology and proteomics can contribute to improve drug and/or target discovery.