What is Proteomics?
The term ‘proteome’ was first coined in 1994, and refers to all the proteins in a cell, tissue, or organism. Proteomics refers to the study of the proteome. Because proteins are involved in almost all biological activities, the proteome is a rich source of biological information. Protein scientists have diverse interests. These include determining the function and amino acid sequence of proteins; their three-dimensional structure; how the addition of sugar, phosphate, or fat affects protein function; and how proteins interact with other molecules, including other proteins. Some researchers are focused on the proteins present in particular parts of the cell such as the outer cell membrane, the nucleus, the cytoplasm (the region of the cell outside the nucleus), or the nuclear membrane; others are analyzing protein-protein interactions in a particular cell or organism; some are studying the differences between the proteins present in diseased vs. healthy cells (1). • How does studying th
Proteins are vital parts of living organisms, as they are the main components of the physiological metabolic pathways of cells. The word “proteome” is a portmanteau of “protein” and “genome”, it is the entire complement of proteins expressed by a cell, organism, or tissue type at a given time (dynamic state). Proteomics is the study of this complement expressed at a given time or under certain environmental conditions. It is the large-scale study of proteins, particularly their structures and functions. It is emphasized that the dynamic property of protein, as there are constitutive proteome which are all known proteins found in a normal cell – they are constantly expressed; and also differentially expressed proteins, such as heat shock proteins that are produced in response to disease, drug treatment, toxic agent or growth.
A recent review on proteomics in the journal Nature defined the field this way: “The term proteome was first coined to describe the set of proteins encoded by the genome1. The study of the proteome, called proteomics, now evokes not only all the proteins in any given cell, but also the set of all protein isoforms and modifications, the interactions between them, the structural description of proteins and their higher-order complexes, and for that matter almost everything ‘post-genomic’.” Michael J.Dunn, the Editor-in-Chief of Proteomics defines the “proteome” as: “the PROTEin complement of the genOME” and proteomics to be concerned with: “qualitative and quantitative studies of gene expression at the level of the functional proteins themselves” that is: “an interface between protein biochemistry and molecular biology” Characterizing the many tens of thousands of proteins expressed in a given cell type at a given time—whether measuring their molecular weights or isoelectric points, id
The study of the human genome is an exciting and often talked about field of research. The study of the human proteome, all the different proteins that form the human body, is less well known, but equally exciting and important. The term proteomics was coined to describe this fascinating and complex science. Proteomics is the study of all the proteins that make up an organism. Proteomics doesn’t just study the proteins themselves, but also the way they interact, the changes that they undergo, and the effects that they have within the organism. The size and complexity of the human proteome is part of what makes proteomics a very complex science. Just as genomics starts with a mapping of the human genome, proteomics attempts to identify and evaluate the function of all the different proteins in the human body. This is a daunting task, because not only are there a huge number of proteins in the human proteome, about 400,000; but these proteins also occur in different locations within the
Proteomics has evolved from genomics and the successful sequencing and mapping of the genomes of a wide variety of organisms, including humans. Genomics involves using reagents, tools and technologies for the high throughput sequencing of DNA and the subsequent storage and annotation of the data. This process is complex and focuses on the information of one target molecule, DNA, in the nucleus of cells. Consequently, there is one genome for each organism. In contrast, proteomics focuses on the identification, localization, and functional analysis of the protein make-up of the cell. The proteins present in a cell, together with their function, sub-cellular location, and perhaps even structure, change dramatically with the organism, and the conditions faced by their host cells including: age, checkpoint in the cell cycle, and external or internal signaling events. Thus, there are many proteomes for each organism and consequently, the quantity and complexity of the data derived from the s
