Modulation of cancer cell line differentiation: A neglected proteomic analysis with potential implications in pathophysiology, diagnosis, prognosis, and therapy of cancer

The recent development of compounds that induce cell differentiation in various types of cancer cells has enabled the molecular mechanisms governing this kind of induced cancer regression to be investigated. Moreover, this approach to investigating the pathophysiology of neoplasia represents a promising experimental model for proteomic analysis of cancer cells. Modulating neoplastic cell differentiation grade may reveal cytodifferentiation-related protein expression changes, and doing so in vitro has the advantage of less biological variation. Hence, this analysis brings attention to molecular targets of the so-called differentiating factors (i.e., retinoids, hybrid polar compounds, tyrosine kinase inhibitors, etc.) as well as proteins that are frequently associated with differentiation/dedifferentiation processes. The in vitro study of these proteins and of their pathogenetic roles in cancer may ultimately result in the discovery of cancer biomarkers with diagnostic, prognostic, and therapeutic applications.