Abstract
Ovarian cancer is the most lethal gynecologic malignancy among women. Approximately 70–80% of patients with advanced ovarian cancer experience relapse within five years and develop platinum-resistance. The short life expectancy of patients with platinum-resistant or platinum-refractory disease underscores the need to develop new and more effective treatment strategies. Early detection is a critical step in mitigating the risk of disease progression from early to an advanced stage disease, and protein biomarkers have an integral role in this process. The best biological diagnostic tool for ovarian cancer will likely be a combination of biomarkers. Targeted proteomics methods, including mass spectrometry-based approaches, have emerged as robust methods that can address the chasm between initial biomarker discovery and the successful verification and validation of these biomarkers enabling their clinical translation due to the robust sensitivity, specificity, and reproducibility of these versatile methods. In this review, we provide background information on the fundamental principles of biomarkers and the need for improved treatment strategies in ovarian cancer. We also provide insight into the ways in which mass spectrometry-based targeted proteomics approaches can provide greatly needed solutions to many of the challenges related to ovarian cancer biomarker development.
Original language | English (US) |
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Article number | 2674 |
Journal | Molecules |
Volume | 26 |
Issue number | 9 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - May 1 2021 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:SNT acknowledges funding from the National Institutes of Health’s National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, grant UL1TR002494. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health’s National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences. SNT also acknowledges startup funds provided by the University of Minnesota Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
Keywords
- Biomarker
- Mass spectrometry
- Ovarian cancer
- Proteomics