1. Members

Project leader	ADACHI Jun
Senior Research fellow	TOMONAGA Takeshi
Postdoctoral associate	NARUMI Ryohei, SATO Yumi, ITO Hisahiro
Researcher	ISOYAMA Junko
Technical assistant	ISHIDA Mimiko, KAKUDO Akemi, IKEMOTO Narumi, HIRANO Masayo, TAKADA Yoko
Collaborative Research Scientist	ABE Yuichi, HIRANO Hidekazu, KUGA Takahisa, MATSUBARA Misako, HARA Yasuhiro, SHIROMIZU Takashi
Student	GUNJI Daigo, KASAHARA Keiko
Administrative Assistant	HYODO Seiko

2. Background and Aims

Many human diseases are caused by aberrant function of proteins. Therefore, it is obvious that development of novel biomarkers useful for diagnosis and treatment of the diseases needs to find such abnormal proteins. Proteomics is a powerful method to comprehensively analyze such proteins. Recent advances in proteomic technology made it possible to identify disease-related proteins in the clinical samples and thus extensive efforts are now attempted to search for the biomarkers across the country, however, none of them has been accepted for clinical use. The main reason is that candidate proteins for biomarker have not been evaluated if they are really involved in the development and progression of the diseases. In this project, our goal is to identify bona fide biomarkers useful for diagnosis and treatment of human diseases through functional analysis of candidate proteins by combining most recent proteomic technology with molecular and cellular biology.

3. Overview of our research

I. Identification of novel biomarker candidate proteins and peptides

Our project develops and applies methods of MS-based proteomics especially for clinical proteomics. Using patient-derived cell lines, mouse models and clinical samples, we aimed to identify biomarkers whose expressions alter quantitatively and qualitatively along with the development and progression of diseases. Serum and plasma samples and exsomes in these samples are used for the analysis of biomarkers useful for diagnosis, while tissue samples from various lesions are used for identification of target proteins for drug discovery.

II. Evaluation of the candidate proteins and peptides for clinical utility

These biomarker candidate proteins should be validated if they are clinically valuable. Diagnostic utility of the proteins will be evaluated by multicenter clinical trial if they are superior to currently-available biomarkers by themselves or by combination with these widely-used markers. Therapeutic benefit should be evaluated if the function of the proteins participates in the development of diseases. It can be tested by examining the disease-related phenotypes after overexpression or suppression of the candidate proteins in cultured cells or genetically-engineered mice. Validation is also performed using recently developed MRM method with a triple quadrupole mass spectrometer.

Laboratory of Proteome Research

E-mail	tomonaga[at]nibiohn.go.jp