ArticleMolecular & cellular proteomics : MCP2021
Plasma Proteomes Can Be Reidentifiable and Potentially Contain Personally Sensitive and Incidental Findings.
Article in Molecular & cellular proteomics : MCP, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 23 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
23 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Narratives and tensions in the ethics of human proteomics literature: a scoping review.BMC medical ethics · 2026Pooled it
- Ethical Principles, Constraints and Opportunities in Clinical Proteomics.Molecular & cellular proteomics : MCP · 2021Pooled it
- Ethics and Regulation of Human Brain Organoid Research: Recommendations from the Asia Pacific Neuroethics Working Group.Asian bioethics review · 2026Article
- 7-day longitudinal proteomics of critically ill patients: a pilot study.Scientific reports · 2026Observational
- Sex-specific associations between pregnancy zone protein and acute coronary syndrome: a case-control study.Biology of sex differences · 2026Article
- Review
- Privacy-preserving multicenter differential protein abundance analysis with FedProt.Nature computational science · 2025Article
- Researcher views on returning results from multi-omics data to research participants: insights from The Molecular Transducers of Physical Activity Consortium (MoTrPAC) Study.BMC medical ethics · 2025Article
- Perspectives in computational mass spectrometry: recent developments and key challenges.Bioinformatics advances · 2025Article
- Bridging the Gap From Proteomics Technology to Clinical Application: Highlights From the 68th Benzon Foundation Symposium.Molecular & cellular proteomics : MCP · 2024Article
- Astronaut omics and the impact of space on the human body at scale.Nature communications · 2024Review
- Longitudinal Fluctuations in Protein Concentrations and Higher-Order Structures in the Plasma Proteome of Kidney Failure Patients Subjected to a Kidney Transplant.Journal of proteome research · 2024Article
- Association between genetically plasma proteins and osteonecrosis: a proteome-wide Mendelian randomization analysis.Frontiers in genetics · 2024Article
- The Impact of Acute Nutritional Interventions on the Plasma Proteome.The Journal of clinical endocrinology and metabolism · 2023Article
- Article
- Foresight in clinical proteomics: current status, ethical considerations, and future perspectives.Open research Europe · 2023Article
- Multi-omic profiling of the leukemic microenvironment shows bone marrow interstitial fluid is distinct from peripheral blood plasma.Experimental hematology & oncology · 2022Article
- A review of mass spectrometry-based analyses to understand COVID-19 convalescent plasma mechanisms of action.Proteomics · 2022Review
- Identifying individuals using proteomics: are we there yet?Frontiers in molecular biosciences · 2022Review
- Progress Identifying and Analyzing the Human Proteome: 2021 Metrics from the HUPO Human Proteome Project.Journal of proteome research · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The goal of clinical proteomics is to identify, quantify, and characterize proteins in body fluids or tissue to assist diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment of patients. In this way, it is similar to more mature omics technologies, such as genomics, that are increasingly applied in biomedicine. We argue that, similar to those fields, proteomics also faces ethical issues related to the kinds of information that is inherently obtained through sample measurement, although their acquisition was not the primary purpose. Specifically, we demonstrate the potential to identify individuals both by their characteristic, individual-specific protein levels and by variant peptides reporting on coding single nucleotide polymorphisms. Furthermore, it is in the nature of blood plasma proteomics profiling that it broadly reports on the health status of an individual-beyond the disease under investigation. Finally, we show that private and potentially sensitive information, such as ethnicity and pregnancy status, can increasingly be derived from proteomics data. Although this is potentially valuable not only to the individual, but also for biomedical research, it raises ethical questions similar to the incidental findings obtained through other omics technologies. We here introduce the necessity of-and argue for the desirability for-ethical and human-rights-related issues to be discussed within the proteomics community. Those thoughts are more fully developed in our accompanying manuscript. Appreciation and discussion of ethical aspects of proteomic research will allow for deeper, better-informed, more diverse, and, most importantly, wiser guidelines for clinical proteomics.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.