4: Proteins and Proteomics

Proteomics is the large-scale and high-throughput study of proteins. A proteome is the population of all proteins expressed by the genome in a specific cell type, tissue or biological fluid at a particular time and under specific conditions. It is assumed that 20 000 structural genes could give rise to perhaps one million or more different proteins. Individual cell types and tissues will contain a restricted repertoire of the total proteome, but taken together the numerical challenge for proteomics is enormous. The study of proteomics can allow studies of cells and tissues in health and disease and this chapter describes some of the current techniques and applications of the methods.