Characterization of the Ovarian Tumor Peptidome

Aberrant degradation of proteins is associated with many pathological states, including cancers. Mass spectrometric analysis of the tumor peptidome has the potential to provide biological insights on proteolytic processing in cancer. However, attempts to use the tumors peptidome information in cancer research have been fairly limited to date, largely due to the lack of effective approaches for robust peptidomics identification and quantification, and the prevalence of confounding factors and biases associated with sample handling and processing. To address this need, we have recently developed an effective and robust analytical platform as well as a novel informatics approach for comprehensive analyses of tissue peptidomes. The ability of this new peptidomics pipeline for high-throughput, comprehensive, and quantitative peptidomics analysis, as well as the suitability of clinical ovarian tumor samples with postexcision delay limited to less than 60min before freezing for peptidomics analysis, has been demonstrated. These initial analyses set a stage for further determination of molecular details and functional significance of the peptidomic activities in ovarian cancer.