Book of abstract 2008

Protein microarray approach in tumour biology investigation
Radovan Komel1, Damjana Kastelic1, Nina Kočevar1, Denis Pompon2
1Medical Centre for Molecular Biology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Ljubljana, Vrazov trg 2, SI-
Ljubljana, Slovenia; 2Centre de Génétique Moléculaire, CNRS, Gif-sur-Yvette, France
The completion of the Human Genome Project has led to intensive development of
genetics-related technologies that are finding their way into all areas of biological research.
Functional genomics and systems biology are based on post-genomic philosophy considering
a cell as a system of simultaneous events of hundreds or thousands interplaying molecules
constituting a complex network of a cell’s life, replying its present physiological condition.
High-throughput genomics and proteomics techniques that allow a global description of
molecular contents of a cell or biological sample have been quickly adapted to develop tools
for medical research, to identify new biomarkers and molecular mechanisms of disease, and
to develop new approaches for clinical applications. As proteins are the “real players” of life,
proteomics is the best way, in particular in combination with metabolomics, to look for the
most relevant disease biomarkers typical for disease proteomes or appearing in the way of
disease development. However, “classical” differential proteomic approach seems be quite
static, allowing comparison of disease and normal proteomes at selected fragments of time
that are limited by frequency, due to the complex and time consuming technology. We
are developing a whole-proteome microarray based on multichannel plasmon resonance
imagery in order to allow a “real-time” insight into cancer proteome during development
of a tumour. We believe that this, simpler and more accurate technique will contribute
to improved knowledge on disease biomarkers and will also allow to return back, i.e. to
develop more relevant and simpler-to-handle transcriptomic approaches for molecular
diagnostics and for studying systemic cellular responses in targeting drug development.
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