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The purpose of this study was to develop the pathway of silk fibroin (SF) biopolymer surface induced cell membrane protein activation. Fibroblasts were used as an experimental model to evaluate the responses of cellular proteins induced by biopolymer material using a mass spectrometry-based profiling system. The surface was covered by multiwalled carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and SF to increase the surface area, enhance the adhesion of biopolymer, and promote the rate of cell proliferation. The amount of adhered fibroblasts on CNTs/SF electrodes of quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) greatly exceeded those on other surfaces. Moreover, analyzing differential protein expressions of adhered fibroblasts on the biopolymer surface by proteomic approaches indicated that CD44 may be a key protein. Through this study, utilization of mass spectrometry-based proteomics in evaluation of cell adhesion on biopolymer was proposed.

Chitosan nanoparticle, a biocompatible material, was used as a potential drug delivery system widely. Our current investigation studies were the bioeffects of the chitosan nanoparticle uptake by liver cells. In this experiment, the characterizations of chitosan nanoparticles were measured by transmission electron microscopy and particle size analyzer. The average size of the chitosan nanoparticle was224.6±11.2 nm, and the average zeta potential was+14.08±0.7 mV. Moreover, using proteomic approaches to analyze the differential protein expression patterns resulted from the chitosan nanoparticle uptaken by HepG2 and CCL-13 cells identified several proteins involved in the PI3K/AKT1/mTOR pathway. Our experimental results have demonstrated that the chitosan nanoparticle may involve in the liver cancer cell metastasis and proliferation.

Peritoneal dialysis (PD) is an increasingly accepted modality of renal replacement therapy. It provides the advantages of having a flexible lifestyle, stable hemodynamics, and better preservation of residual renal function. To enhance our understanding of the peritoneal dialysate of diabetes mellitus (DM), peritoneal dialysate proteins were identified by two-dimensional gel electrophoresis (2DE) combined with reverse-phase nano-ultra performance liquid chromatography electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry (RP-nano-UPLC-ESI-MS/MS) followed by peptide fragmentation patterning. To validate the differential proteins, ELISA and Western blotting analyses were applied to detect candidate proteins that may be related to DM. We performed 2DE on the peritoneal dialysate samples, with detection of more than 300 spots. From this, 13 spots were excised, in-gel digested, and identified by RP-nano-UPLC-ESI-MS/MS. Ten of these showed significant differential expression between the DM and chronic glomerulonephritis (CGN) peritoneal dialysate samples. In this study, we conducted a comparative proteomic study on these two groups of dialysate that may provide evidence for understanding the different peritoneal protein changes. These proteins may not be new biomarkers; however, they may indicate a situation for possible drug treatment and can be the predictors of peritonitis for a validation study in the future.