Proteomics

Definition


Proteomics is something new in the field of biotechnology. It is basically the study of the proteome, the collective body of proteins made y a person's cells and tissues. Since it is proteins, and to a much lesser extent, other types of biological molecules that are directly involved in both normal and diseaseassociated biochemical processes, a more complete understanding of the disease may be gained by directly looking at the proteins present within a diseased cell or tissue and this is achieved through the study of the proteome, Proteomics. For, Proteomics, we need 2-D electrophoresis equipment ot separate the proteins, mass spectrometry to identify them and x-ray crystallography to know more of the structure and function of the proteins. These equipments are essential in the study of proteomics.

From The Genome To The Proteome

Genomics has provided a vast amount of information linking gene activity with disease. It is now recognized that gene sequence information and pattern of gene activity in a cell do not provide a complete and accurate profile of a protein's abundance or its final structure and state of activity. The day of spotlight of the human genome is now coming to an end. Researchers are now concentrating on the human proteome, the collective body of all the proteins made by a person's cells and tissues. The genome- the full set of information in the body-contains only the recipes for making proteins; it is the proteins that constitute the bricks and mortar of cells and that do most of the work. Moreover it is the proteins that distinguish the various types of cells: although all cells have essentially the same genome, they can vary in which genes are active and thus in which proteins are made. Likewise diseased cells often produce proteins that healthy cells don't and vice versa. Proteome research permits the discovery of new protein markers for diagnostic purposes and of novel molecular targets for drug discovery.

Proteins

All living things contain proteins. The structure of a cell is largely built of proteins. Proteins are complex, three-dimensional substances composed of one or more long, folded polypeptide chains. These chains, in turn, consist of small chemical units called amino acids. There are twenty kinds of amino acids involved in protein production, and any number of them may be linked in any order to form the polypeptide chain. The order of the amino acids in the polypeptide chain is decided by the information contained in DNA structure of the cell's genes. Following this translation, most proteins are chemically changed through post-translation modification (PTM), mainly through the addition of carbohydrate and phosphate groups. Such modification plays an important role in modulating the function of many proteins but the genes do not code it. As a consequence, the information from a single gene can encode as many as fifty different protein species. It is clear that genomic information often does not provide an accurate profile of protein abundance, structure and activity.