A few months ago some of the big time cancer researchers at Hopkins got pretty excited about this paper in PNAS. In this study they found an apparent relationship between the length of protein glyco chains and cancer prognosis. I think its safe to say that a lot of meta-analysis of proteomics data started around the world because of it. (Okay, I know of at least one big PC that has been chugging through data looking for these relationships...more on this later I'm sure).
We may already have confirmation that this is true thanks to this incredible paper in press at MCP. Tuomas Kaprio is the lead author but it appears to be a multi-institution study with contributions from researchers in Helsinki and Holland. In this, they show that they can detect differences in N-glycosylation of proteins between rectal adenomas and carcinomas.
Have you ever done histology? Years ago, I tried to expand my skill set by getting certified in hematology. Its amazingly freaking hard. You look at a small smear of cells and you can tell by their general shape and relationship between different microsopic aspects whether the cells are...I don't know...from an adenoma or a carcinoma (just a growth vs a cancerous growth)? The people that are good at this: 1) have tons of respect from me 2) deserve to make a lot of money (and I hope they do). But, as someone who (by the way, didn't get that certification) is an outsider, it seems like there could be a more standardized way to determine the difference between these cells. There are cancer markers out there, but what if all we need to be doing is looking for differences in our glycosylated proteins in plasma as an indicator of cancer in a system? How great would that be!?!?
The more I see and hear, the more I think this is just around the corner. Keep cranking, guys!
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