PNNL

Abstract

Cancer genomics research aims to advance personalized oncology by finding and targeting genetic alterations associated with cancers. In genome-driven oncology, treatments are selected for individual patients based on the genomic sequence of their tumor. This personalized oncology approach has prolonged survival for subsets of cancer patients. However, many patients do not respond to the predicted therapies based on genomic profiles of their tumors. Recent studies pairing genomic and proteomic analyses in the same tumors have shown that the proteome encodes novel information that is not discerned through genomic analysis alone. This has led to the concept of “proteogenomics,” in which both types of data are leveraged for a more complete view of tumor biology that may more effectively match cancer patients to efficacious treatments. Technological advances in methods for quantifying proteins, including targeted mass spectrometry, have opened a path for the clinical translation of proteogenomic findings into clinical research. We discuss the added value of a combined proteogenomics approach over the current genome-centric approach in characterizing human cancers, and summarize current efforts to incorporate targeted proteomic measurements based on multiple reaction monitoring mass spectrometry (MRM) into the clinical laboratory to facilitate clinical proteogenomics.