Potential utility of reverse-phase protein array for refining precision cancer medicine

Abstract

Rapid advances in next-generation sequencing (NGS) technology over the past decade have led to a paradigm shift in cancer treatment from one-size-fits-all medicine to genomics-based precision medicine that has become more accessible in general clinical practice. It, however, has helped only less than 10% of the cancer patients who have taken genomic profiling tests. Proteomics-based rather than genomics-based approaches can capture biological processes directly contributing to cancer pathogenesis. There is, therefore, a growing need for simultaneous proteomic analysis in the next stage of precision medicine. In the future, it is expected that data from genomic, transcriptomic, proteomic, and epigenomic analyses will be integrated and complemented to more accurately understand the disease states and propose therapeutic strategies. Reverse-phase protein array (RPPA) is a proteomic technology that enables semi-quantitative, accurate, and high throughput signal profiling even in small amounts of samples. This review introduces its current status and the application to precision cancer medicine, and highlights the potential utility of RPPA technology for improving precision cancer medicine.