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Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology 7, 952–958 (1 December 2006) | doi:10.1038/nrm2067

Functional and quantitative proteomics using SILAC

Matthias Mann

Researchers in many biological areas now routinely characterize proteins by mass spectrometry. Among the many formats for quantitative proteomics, stable-isotope labelling by amino acids in cell culture (SILAC) has emerged as a simple and powerful one. SILAC removes false positives in protein-interaction studies, reveals large-scale kinetics of proteomes and — as a quantitative phosphoproteomics technology — directly uncovers important points in the signalling pathways that control cellular decisions.