Protein microarray technology: Assisting personalized medicine in oncology (Review)

Among proteomics technologies, protein microarray, over the past last years, has gained an increased momentum in the biomarkers discovery domain. The characteristics of protein microarray, namely that it is a high-throughput tool, it provides a high specificity and only requires a minute amount of biological samples, render it a suitable tool for searching, quantifying and validating biomarkers in various pathologies. Protein microarray is based on the specific antigen‐antibody reaction, such as any enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, the specific reaction occurring on a miniaturized support (chip or slide), thus having the advantage of simultaneous evaluation of tens to thousands of molecules in small samples with a highly specific recognition for the detection system. In this review, we highlight the history of protein microarray technologies development and discuss this technology is stepping into the future. We present personalized medicine goals and discuss how protein microarray can aid in these goals, with an emphasis on several oncological diseases. We also discuss how protein technology has been used in diseases, such as lung, breast cancers, as well as in other diseases that, over the past last years, have taken advantage of this proteomic endeavor.