超过四十年来，基于质谱技术的方法为癌症研究领域的各种挑战提供了大量相关的信息。这些挑战包括为各种疾病识别和验证新生物标志物，特别是各种癌症形式的新生物标志物。这些生物标志物具有各种不同的目标，包括监测患者对各种治疗方法的反应，区分相同类型癌症的不同亚组，以及为基因组、表观遗传和转录组方法所生成的数据集提供蛋白质组数据补充。相同的蛋白质组数据可用于提供预测信息，并有望指导科学家和医学家开展新的、创新的靶向治疗。过去十年中，表观遗传在癌变过程中成为重要因素的快速崛起，这一发展为MS蛋白质组学注入新的活力，被证明是分析与染色质修饰相关的蛋白质后翻译修饰的无与伦比工具。特别地，高分辨质谱最近被用于系统量化染色质修饰。这种方法产生的数据在寻找各种癌症新疗法和尝试解密抗肿瘤药物抵抗中起到了关键作用。为了欣赏基于质谱技术的蛋白质组学在生物标志物发现和我们对各种癌症起源和进展机制的理解方面的贡献，文章讨论了一些最近的研究。这些研究还包括由双向凝胶电泳与质谱技术相结合提供的结果。

For over four decades, mass spectrometry-based methods have provided a wealth of information relevant to various challenges in the field of cancers research. These challenges included identification and validation of novel biomarkers for various diseases, in particular for various forms of cancer. These biomarkers serve various objectives including monitoring patient response to the various forms of therapy, differentiating subgroups of the same type of cancer, and providing proteomic data to complement datasets generated by genomic, epigenetic, and transcriptomic methods. The same proteomic data can be used to provide prognostic information and could guide scientists and medics to new and innovative targeted therapies The past decade has seen a rapid emergence of epigenetics as a major contributor to carcinogenesis. This development has given a fresh momentum to MS-based proteomics, which demonstrated to be an unrivalled tool for the analyses of protein post-translational modifications associated with chromatin modifications. In particular, high-resolution mass spectrometry has been recently used for systematic quantification of chromatin modifications. Data generated by this approach are central in the search for new therapies for various forms of cancer and will help in attempts to decipher antitumor drug resistance. To appreciate the contribution of mass spectrometry-based proteomics to biomarkers discovery and to our understanding of mechanisms behind the initiation and progression of various forms of cancer, a number of recent investigations are discussed. These investigations also include results provided by two-dimensional gel electrophoresis combined with mass spectrometry.