Proteomics

Proteomics is the large-scale study of proteins. It is an interdisciplinary domain that has benefited greatly from the genetic information of various genome projects, including the Human Genome Project. It covers the exploration of proteomes from the overall level of protein composition, structure, and activity, and is an important component of functional genomics. The proteome is the entire set of proteins produced or modified by an organism or system.

Proteomics generally denotes the large-scale experimental analysis of proteins and proteomes, but often refers specifically to protein purification and mass spectrometry. Indeed, mass spectrometry is the most powerful method for analysis of proteomes, both in large samples composed of millions of cells, and in single cells.

Proteins are vital macromolecules of all living organisms, with many functions such as the formation of structural fibers of muscle tissue, enzymatic digestion of food, or synthesis and replication of DNA. In addition, other kinds of proteins include antibodies that protect an organism from infection, and hormones that send important signals throughout the body.

Proteomics enables the identification of ever-increasing numbers of proteins. This varies with time and distinct requirements, or stresses, that a cell or organism undergoes.

The first studies of proteins that could be regarded as proteomics began in 1974, after the introduction of the two-dimensional gel and mapping of the proteins from the bacterium Escherichia coli.

Proteome is a blend of the words "protein" and "genome". It was coined in 1994 by then-Ph.D student Marc Wilkins at Macquarie University, which founded the first dedicated proteomics laboratory in 1995.

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 proteomes differ 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 produced in a cell must be identified.

In the past this phenomenon was assessed by RNA analysis, which was found to lack correlation 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 cell's physiological state. Proteomics confirms the presence of the protein and provides a direct measure of its quantity.^{[citation needed]}