Mass Spectrometry-based Proteomics in Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome: A Powerful Modality for Pulmonary Precision Medicine

Objective: Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is an acute and lethal clinical syndrome that is characterized by hypoxemic respiratory failure and diffuse alveolar inflammatory damage. This review aimed to search and discuss the mass spectrometry (MS)-based proteomic studies on different subsets of ARDS patients. Data Sources: Original research articles were collected from the PubMed database published in English up to December 2015. Study Selection: The literature search was done using the term “(acute lung injury OR acute respiratory distress syndrome) AND (proteomics OR proteome OR mass spectrum OR differential in-gel electrophoresis OR two-dimensional polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis)”. Related original research articles were included and were carefully analyzed. Results: Eight original proteomic researches on ARDS patients were found. The common proteomic modalities were two-dimensional (2D) high-performance liquid chromatography-based electronic spray ion-MS/MS and 2D-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis/differential in-gel electrophoresis-based matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization-time of flight/MS. They compared the proteome between ARDS patients and normal controls and analyzed the dynamic changes of proteome at different ARDS stages or severity. The disturbed proteome in ARDS patients includes plasma acute-phase proteins, inflammatory/immune-associated proteins, and coagulation proteins. Conclusions: Although several previous studies have provided some useful information about the lung proteome in ARDS patients and gained several interesting disease-associated biomarkers, clinical proteomic studies in ARDS patients are still in the initial stage. An increased cooperation is still needed to establish a global and faithful database containing disease-specific proteome from the largest ARDS subsets.