Proteomics as a tool to improve novel insights into skin diseases: what we know and where we should be going

Sheng-Yuan Zheng; Xi-Min Hu; Kun Huang; Zi-Han Li; Qing-Ning Chen; Rong-Hua Yang; Kun Xiong

doi:10.3389/fsurg.2022.1025557

Proteomics as a tool to improve novel insights into skin diseases: what we know and where we should be going

Front Surg. 2022 Oct 21:9:1025557. doi: 10.3389/fsurg.2022.1025557. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Sheng-Yuan Zheng^{1

2}, Xi-Min Hu^{1

2}, Kun Huang³, Zi-Han Li³, Qing-Ning Chen³, Rong-Hua Yang⁴, Kun Xiong^{2

5

6}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Dermatology, Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha, China.
² Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology, School of Basic Medical Science, Central South University, Changsha, China.
³ Clinical Medicine Eight-Year Program, Xiangya School of Medicine, Central South University, Changsha, China.
⁴ Department of Burn and Plastic Surgery, Guangzhou First People's Hospital, School of 173 Medicine, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, China.
⁵ Key Laboratory of Emergency and Trauma, Ministry of Education, College of Emergency and Trauma, Hainan Medical University, Haikou, China.
⁶ Hunan Key Laboratory of Ophthalmology, Central South University, Changsha, China.

Abstract

Background: Biochemical processes involved in complex skin diseases (skin cancers, psoriasis, and wound) can be identified by combining proteomics analysis and bioinformatics tools, which gain a next-level insight into their pathogenesis, diagnosis, and therapeutic targets.

Methods: Articles were identified through a search of PubMed, Embase, and MEDLINE references dated to May 2022, to perform system data mining, and a search of the Web of Science (WoS) Core Collection was utilized to conduct a visual bibliometric analysis.

Results: An increased trend line revealed that the number of publications related to proteomics utilized in skin diseases has sharply increased recent years, reaching a peak in 2021. The hottest fields focused on are skin cancer (melanoma), inflammation skin disorder (psoriasis), and skin wounds. After deduplication and title, abstract, and full-text screening, a total of 486 of the 7,822 outcomes met the inclusion/exclusion criteria for detailed data mining in the field of skin disease tooling with proteomics, with regard to skin cancer. According to the data, cell death, metabolism, skeleton, immune, and inflammation enrichment pathways are likely the major part and hotspots of proteomic analysis found in skin diseases. Also, the focuses of proteomics in skin disease are from superficial presumption to depth mechanism exploration within more comprehensive validation, from basic study to a combination or guideline for clinical applications. Furthermore, we chose skin cancer as a typical example, compared with other skin disorders. In addition to finding key pathogenic proteins and differences between diseases, proteomic analysis is also used for therapeutic evaluation or can further obtain in-depth mechanisms in the field of skin diseases.

Conclusion: Proteomics has been regarded as an irreplaceable technology in the study of pathophysiological mechanism and/or therapeutic targets of skin diseases, which could provide candidate key proteins for the insight into the biological information after gene transcription. However, depth pathogenesis and potential clinical applications need further studies with stronger evidence within a wider range of skin diseases.

Keywords: bibliometric analysis; data mining study; molecular biomarker; pathogenesis; proteomics; skin disease; treatment.