Towards precision medicine: the role and potential of protein and peptide microarrays

Analyst. 2019 Sep 9;144(18):5353-5367. doi: 10.1039/c9an01142k.

Abstract

Although the traditional strategy of developing general medical treatments for heterogeneous patient populations has a well-established track record, the acknowledgment that one-size-does-not-fit-all is pushing health-care to enter a new era of tailored interventions. The advent of precision medicine is fueled by the high-throughput analysis of individual DNA variants and mRNA expression profiles. However, due to the role of proteins in providing a more direct view of disease states than genomics alone, the ability to comprehensively analyze protein alterations and post translational modifications (PTMs) is a necessary step to unravel disease mechanisms, develop novel biomarkers and targeted therapies. Protein and peptide microarrays can play a major role in this frame, due to high-throughput, low sample consumption and wide applicability. Here, their current role and potentialities are discussed through the review of some promising applications in the fields of PTMs analysis, enzyme screening, high-content immune-profiling and the phenotyping of extracellular vesicles.

Publication types

  • Review

MeSH terms

  • Biological Assay
  • Humans
  • Immobilized Proteins / chemistry
  • Immobilized Proteins / metabolism
  • Peptides / chemistry
  • Peptides / metabolism*
  • Precision Medicine / methods*
  • Protein Array Analysis / methods*

Substances

  • Immobilized Proteins
  • Peptides