Proteomics

Proteomics is the large-scale study of proteins. Proteins are vital parts of living organisms, with many functions. The term proteomics was coined in 1997 in analogy with genomics, the study of the genome. The word proteome is a portmanteau of protein and genome, and was coined by Marc Wilkins in 1994 while a PhD student at Macquarie University.Macquarie University also founded the first dedicated proteomics laboratory in 1995 (the Australian Proteome Analysis Facility – APAF).

The proteome is the entire set of proteins, produced or modified by an organism or system. This varies with time and distinct requirements, or stresses, that a cell or organism undergoes. Proteomics is an interdisciplinary domain that has benefited greatly from the genetic information of the Human Genome Project; it is also emerging scientific research and exploration of proteomes from the overall level of intracellular protein composition, structure, and its own unique activity patterns. It is an important component of functional genomics.

While proteomics generally refers to the large-scale experimental analysis of proteins, it is often specifically used for protein purification and mass spectrometry.

After genomics and transcriptomics, proteomics is the next step in the study of biological systems. It is more complicated than genomics because an organism's genome is more or less constant, whereas the proteome differs from cell to cell and from time to time. Distinct genes are expressed in different cell types, which means that even the basic set of proteins that are produced in a cell needs to be identified.

In the past this phenomenon was done by RNA analysis, but it was found not to correlate with protein content. It is now known that mRNA is not always translated into protein, and the amount of protein produced for a given amount of mRNA depends on the gene it is transcribed from and on the current physiological state of the cell. Proteomics confirms the presence of the protein and provides a direct measure of the quantity present.

Not only does the translation from mRNA cause differences, but many proteins are also subjected to a wide variety of chemical modifications after translation. Many of these post-translational modifications are critical to the protein's function.

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