Proteomic-Based Approaches for the Study of Ischemic Stroke

Abstract

Ischemic stroke is the most common type of stroke. Despite the fact that there have been extensive efforts for establishing accurate diagnose and efficient therapy, ischemic stroke continues to be one of the main causes of death worldwide [1, 2]. Currently, genomics provides information about what the body “can do,” transcriptomics provides information about what the cell “will do,” while proteomics tells us “what is happening.” Proteomics complements genomics and transcriptomics and provides information about the implementation of proteins as the main functional mediators of cells, such as their post-translational modification and their interactions with other biological molecules [3]. In the last years, studies focusing on genomics and transcriptomics aimed to discover new diagnostic or prognostic evidence for ischemic stroke [4]. However, the state of brain cells after ischemic stroke is most directly related to protein function, which is also the target of most drug intervention. Therefore, investigations at the protein level are favorable for the in-depth description of neuronal injury after ischemic stroke. Innovative high-throughput proteomics techniques can help us accurately evaluate the degree of neuronal injury after ischemia, study the mechanism of drug action, and explore the role of key proteins in neuronal injury. Using these emerging proteomics techniques, diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers for ischemic stroke may be identified. For years, mass spectrometry (MS)-based proteomics has enabled us to obtain large profiling datasets with very high precision. Here, the recent advances in proteomic researches in ischemic stroke are outlined. Studies Performed in Human Brain Tissue/Cerebrospinal Fluid/Plasma