血漿のプロテオミクス解析  [in Japanese] Plasma analysis of rheumatoid arthritis by SELDI  [in Japanese]

  プロテオミクスの技術が，近年，非常に発展してきている．プロテオミクス解析は複雑な，多種類のタンパク質混合物のプロファイルを一挙に解析することができる．さらに発現量のみではなく，タンパク質の修飾状態までも検出可能である．とくに，血漿のような，多くのタンパク質を含む，複雑なサンプルの解析に有効であると考えられ，関節リウマチにおける診断，疾患活動性および治療効果判定に有用と思われるバイオマーカーの検索が行われている．本稿では血漿のプロテオミクス解析に関する有用性，問題点を，関節リウマチを中心に，われわれの研究報告を含め解説する．

  To identify protein biomarkers linking to disease activity and treatment responses of patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), proteomic study using mass spectrometric analysis of plasma proteins was performed. Proteomic profiling technologies can simultaneously resolve and analyze multiple proteins in plasma. Evaluation of multiple proteins of the plasma will be essential to discover protein biomarkers. In this study, we used protein chip surface enhanced laser desorption/ionization time of flight mass spectrometry approach (SELDI-TOF MS). Through differential profiling of plasma proteins, we selected two prospective candidate biomarkers. One mass spectrometric peak distinguished patients with RA from healthy controls was transthyretin (TTR) and the other distinguished inactive patients with RA from patients with active RA was Serum Amyloid A (SAA). This study demonstrates that proteomic profiling using mass spectrometry of plasma greatly facilitates global discovery and verify clinically relevant sets of disease biomarker directly links to disease activity and treatment responses.