Drug target identification and quantitative proteomics.

The emerging technologies in proteomic analysis provide great opportunity for the discovery of novel therapeutic drug targets for unmet medical needs through delivering of key information on protein expression, post-translational modifications and protein–protein interactions. This review presents a summary of current quantitative proteomic concepts and mass spectrometric technologies, which enable the acceleration of target discovery. Examples of the strategies and current technologies in the target identification/validation process are provided to illustrate the successful application of proteomics in target identification, in particular for monoclonal antibody therapies. Current bottlenecks and future directions of proteomic studies for target and biomarker identification are also discussed to better facilitate the application of this technology.