Reverse-phase protein arrays for application-orientated cancer research.

A detailed and quantitative analysis of disease-relevant signaling will greatly contribute to our understanding of tumorigenesis and cancer progression, and thus open new strategies for drug discovery. However, throughput and sensitivity of currently established methods available for proteome profiling do not comply with the needs of clinical research such as high sample capacity and low sample consumption. Protein microarrays emerged as a promising alternative to analyze the abundance of proteins and their phosphorylation status on a high-throughput level. Here we summarize recent methodological advancements in the field of reverse-phase protein arrays and demonstrate their potential for clinical research as well as for in vitro applications.