The power of surfaceome analysis in cancer to design novel targeted therapies

The spectrum of cell surface proteins (the surfaceome) is one of the key focus of the drug industry, as 66% of approved human drugs registered in the Drug Bank database target a protein on the cell-surface, which makes the surfaceome of great therapeutical significance [1]. However, the comprehensive evaluation of the human surface protein repertoire remains a major challenge and several methods are needed to interrogate cell-surface proteins, in particular where low numbers of cells are available. The combination of gene expression analysis by next generation deep sequencing of bulk RNA-sequencing and single cell RNA-sequencing, integrated with cell-surface protein expression by proteomics, could potentially overcome inaccurate predictions of human cell-surface genes. This approach could avoid relying on an assumed correlation between mRNA levels and effective protein expression and define the cell proteome, including those proteins that are located on the cell surface. The for characterization in could constitute a for to in could be in and