ABSTRACT
One of the key objectives of the study of human diseases is to develop diagnostic and ultimately preventative or curative approaches. In order to achieve this goal, a clear understanding of the disease process and the associated systemic changes must be developed. Some of the realities that must be dealt with in clinical analysis include (1) the heterogeneity of patients (genetic and environmental) (2) the different stages of disease development, (3) the limited quantities and restricted sources of available material, and the (4) the frequent lack of availability of repeat samples of a given tissue. Thus a major goal is to develop approaches that maximize the information
recovered from such potentially limiting and complex samples. Recently developed proteomic-based approaches provide capabilities, which can meet a number of these needs.1-3
Mass spectrometric-based proteomic techniques are highly sensitive and they can potentially deal with complex samples.4 Using these approaches for the high content analysis of biological samples, hundreds to thousands of proteins can be identifi ed in an undirected analysis of disease. The term undirected does not indicate a lack of hypothesis; rather, it refl ects a broad-based analysis that is not necessarily directed at specifi ed predetermined protein(s) or processes.
