Proteomics of human urine

Abstract

© 2007 Humana Press Inc. All rights reserved. Urine is one of the most interesting and useful human body fluids for clinical proteomics studies because of its availability in almost all patients and ease of collection without any invasive or painful procedure. Proteomic analysis of human urine offers invaluable information not only for a better understanding of the normal renal physiology and pathophysiology of kidney/kidney-related diseases, but also for biomarker discovery. This chapter provides principles, brief methods, and applications of various proteomic technologies (i.e., gel-based method, liquid chromatographybased approach, surface-enhanced laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry, capillary electrophoresis coupled to mass spectrometry, and mass spectrometric immunoassay) to examine the human urine. At the end, perspectives and future directions in the field of urinary proteomics are discussed.