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What is mass
spectrometry?
http://www.asms.org/whatisms/p1.html
What is a
proteome and what is proteomics?
A proteome is the protein profile (composition and quantitation)
of a cell, tissue or organism under defined conditions.
Proteomics is any large scale or systematic characterization of
the proteome of a cell, tissue,or organism. It can be
classified as global proteomics (the study of all proteins present
in a cell, tissue or organism) and targeted proteomics (the study
of a subproteome, e.g. organelles, protein groups and complexes).
Why proteomics
research?
Of the many reasons, here are a few of
the major ones:
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The level of gene expression does not
often represent the amount of active protein in a cell. The
correlation between mRNA levels and altered protein expression
was only 0.48 in certain cases (Electrophoresis 1997, 18,
533-537).
-
Gene sequence does not describe
posttranslational modifications which are essential for the
function and activity of a protein.
-
Genomics does not describe dynamic
processes on the protein level and genes are "scripts" while
proteins are the actual "actors".
-
Technical advances in protein
fractionation, such as IPG strip for 2 D gel electrophoresis,
liquid phase isoelectric focusing, multidimensional chromatography,
and mass spectrometery (high sensitivity, high resolution
and high throughput) especially have greatly facilitated
proteomics research.
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