In a landmark study of tissue samples, scientists at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Johns Hopkins University and their collaborators from medical centers across the nation have examined genetic and protein make up in the tumors of 169 ovarian cancer patients to identify critical proteins present in their tumors.
By integrating their findings about the collection of proteins (the proteome) with information already known about the tumors' genetic data (the genome), the investigators were able to gain new insights into the progress of the most malignant form of the disease. Their findings were published June 29, 2016, in the advance online edition of Cell.
The researchers say their achievement illustrates the power of combining genomic and proteomic data - an approach known as proteogenomics - to yield a more complete picture of the biology of a cancer that accounts for three percent of all cancers in women and is the fifth leading cause of cancer deaths among women in the United States.
