Immunoproteomics: From biomarker discovery to diagnostic applications

Circulating antibodies reflect a molecular imprint of antigens that are related to autoimmune diseases, cancer or infection. Importantly, serum antibodies are useful clinical markers as they carry diagnostic information from all around the human body. Moreover, the amplification cascade governed by the humoral immune system causes a surplus of circulating antibodies after appearance of the corresponding (low abundance) antigen. In combination with the fact that antibodies are highly stable compared to many other serum proteins, they seem ideal to be implemented in clinical diagnostic assays for the detection of antigen-associated diseases. This review summarises advances in immunoproteomics with respect to technologies for biomarker discovery, with special emphasis on recently developed gel-free MS-based approaches, and looks forward to potential immunoproteomic applications in diagnostic medicine.