Review

Proteomics, pathway array and signaling network-based medicine in cancer

David Y Zhang¹ , Fei Ye¹ , Ling Gao² , Xiaoliang Liu² , Xin Zhao³ , Yufang Che⁴ , Hongxia Wang⁵ , Libo Wang⁶ , Josephine Wu¹ , Dong Song⁷ , Wei Liu⁸ , Hong Xu⁴ , Bo Jiang⁴ , Weijia Zhang⁹ , Jinhua Wang¹⁰ and Peng Lee¹¹

¹  Department of Pathology, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, NY, USA

²  Cancer Center, First Hospital of Jilin University, Changchun, PR China

³  Department of Pediatric Medicine, First Hospital of Jilin University, Changchun, PR China

⁴  Department of Gastrointestinal Medicine, Nanfang Medical University, Guangzhou, PR China

⁵  Department of Oncology, Shanghai Renji Hospital, Shanghai, PR China

⁶  Department of Gastrointestinal Medicine, First Hospital of Jilin University, Changchun, PR China

⁷  Department of Breast Surgery, First Hospital of Jilin University, Changchun, PR China

⁸  Department of Thoracic Surgery & Bethune Chest Center, First Hospital of Jilin University, Changchun, PR China

⁹  Department of Medicine, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, NY, USA

¹⁰  NYU Cancer Institute, New York University School of Medicine, New York, NY, USA

¹¹  Department of Pathology, New York University School of Medicine, New York, NY, USA

author email corresponding author email

Cell Division 2009, 4:20doi:10.1186/1747-1028-4-20

Published:	28 October 2009

Abstract

Cancer is a multifaceted disease that results from dysregulated normal cellular signaling networks caused by genetic, genomic and epigenetic alterations at cell or tissue levels. Uncovering the underlying protein signaling network changes, including cell cycle gene networks in cancer, aids in understanding the molecular mechanism of carcinogenesis and identifies the characteristic signaling network signatures unique for different cancers and specific cancer subtypes. The identified signatures can be used for cancer diagnosis, prognosis, and personalized treatment. During the past several decades, the available technology to study signaling networks has significantly evolved to include such platforms as genomic microarray (expression array, SNP array, CGH array, etc.) and proteomic analysis, which globally assesses genetic, epigenetic, and proteomic alterations in cancer. In this review, we compared Pathway Array analysis with other proteomic approaches in analyzing protein network involved in cancer and its utility serving as cancer biomarkers in diagnosis, prognosis and therapeutic target identification. With the advent of bioinformatics, constructing high complexity signaling networks is possible. As the use of signaling network-based cancer diagnosis, prognosis and treatment is anticipated in the near future, medical and scientific communities should be prepared to apply these techniques to further enhance personalized medicine.