Title:Achievements and Challenges of Proteomics in the Study of Rheumatoid Arthritis
Volume: 13
Issue: 6
Author(s): Cristina Ruiz-Romero and Francisco J. Blanco
Affiliation:
Keywords:
Proteomics, rheumatoid arthritis, biomarkers, mass spectrometry, protein arrays.
Abstract: Effective management of Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) is being hampered by the difficulties for its early diagnosis
and the heterogeneity of the disease. Although early intervention can result in disease remission, it requires early diagnosis,
and current diagnostic tests are not sufficiently accurate or sensitive in the early stages of RA. Therefore, research
efforts are increasingly focused on gaining knowledge about RA pathogenesis, and also on the discovery of novel biological
markers that enable early diagnosis and stratification of the disease, and thus the implementation of targeted therapies.
Ongoing research includes the emergence of novel approaches for the characterization of molecules that play a role in RA,
such as genomic, proteomic and metabolomic technologies. These techniques, coupled with sophisticated statistical methods,
permit the simultaneous analysis of multiple targets, and have become very powerful tools in RA research both for
etiopathogenesis studies and biomarker discovery. It is believed that proteomics will soon provide a much-needed novel
therapeutic approach to treating RA. This chapter will focus on the utility of Proteomics in RA research to enable a better
understanding of the disease process, and to provide novel protein biomarkers useful for early diagnosis, prognosis and
the application of tailored treatments.
