Proteomics of ovarian cancer: functional insights and clinical applications

In the past decade, there has been an increasing interest in applying proteomics to assist in understanding the pathogenesis of ovarian cancer, elucidating the mechanism of drug resistance, and in the development of biomarkers for early detection of ovarian cancer. Although ovarian cancer is a spectrum of different diseases, the strategies for diagnosis and treatment with surgery and adjuvant therapy are similar across ovarian cancer types, increasing the general applicability of discoveries made through proteomics research. While proteomic experiments face many difficulties which slow the pace of clinical applications, recent advances in proteomic technology contribute significantly to the identification of aberrant proteins and networks which can serve as targets for biomarker development and individualized therapies. This review provides a summary of the literature on proteomics’ contributions to ovarian cancer research and highlights the current issues, future directions, and challenges. We propose that protein-level characterization of primary lesion in ovarian cancer can decipher the mystery of this disease, improve diagnostic tools, and lead to more effective screening programs.