According to symposium proceedings published in the February 2004 issue of Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, proteomics has important implications for alcoholism research in terms of identifying biomarkers of alcohol intake, understanding alcohol's effects, particularly on the liver, and developing drugs to treat alcoholism.
"The study of proteins involved in alcoholism has taken two different approaches," said Chinnaswamy Kasinathan, associate professor at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey and symposium organizer. "One approach is to select a protein for study because of its role in a pathway believed to involve alcoholism. Since alcoholism is a behavioral disorder, many of the candidate proteins selected for study are involved in neurochemical pathways. An alternate proteomic approach is to study as many proteins as can be separated by a technique such as 2D gel electrophoresis and identified through mass spectrometry. This approach does not select any candidate protein in advance, rather, this approach incorporates and examines the entire proteosome of the body."
The symposium took place at the June 2003 Research Society on Alcoholism meeting in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Some of the key points were:
"This would have important applications for many alcoholism treatment facilities," he added. "For example, there are approximately 17,000 facilities in the United States that treat patients for substance abuse, including alcoholism. The nature of these facilities varies widely, from very small solo practices to very large hospital complexes and residential treatment centers. Many of these facilities do not have easy on-site access to phlebotomists, people who withdraw blood samples for examination. Therefore, urinary tests are more convenient measures of alcohol intake than blood tests in many of these facilities."
"These findings contribute further evidence that it is alcohol itself that elicits potential cardiovascular beneficial effects," commented Kent Vrana, the study's author. "Moreover, this analysis of several hundred proteins, including the identification of two important species, points to the promise of proteomic screening as a tool to better understand the pathophysiological characterization of alcohol abuse and alcoholism."
Laura Beretta, one of the scientists who will be working with the Human Liver Proteome Project, said its mission would be to characterize and localize proteins in both normal and diseased human liver.
"The plan is to involve multiple laboratories internationally," she said, "to build an international network of experts in liver cell biology, proteomics and bioinformatics, and to develop a common bioinformatics platform to track samples with centralized data capture and analysis. The establishment of a 'liver biological atlas' would represent a major advance in the understanding of the biological functions of this organ. It may also lead to the development of new therapeutic approaches for liver-specific and other diseases."
