Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Perspective
  • Published:

Large-scale proteomics and its future impact on medicine

The Pharmacogenomics Journal volume 1, pages 15–19 (2001)Cite this article

In the last 25 years we have gone from studying single genes to entire genomes. It’s amazing that we already have the genome sequences of 599 viruses and viroids, 205 naturally occurring plasmids, 185 organelles, 31 eubacteria, seven archaea, one fungus, one plant, and two mammals. Due to the public availability of the human genome, at least 30 disease genes have been positionaly cloned.1 There have indeed been many impressive advances in the fields of genomics,1,2,3,4,5 but along with these fetes the HGP has also catalysed the need for post-genomic technologies. The post-genomics era is spawning and proteomics is set to play a major role in defining biological systems at a molecular level. Here we look at large-scale proteomics in the post-genome era and reflect on its future impact to study biological systems in medical research.

In asking how proteomics will impact on medicine, we should start by asking what can it enable now. A description of technologies (Table 1) and their applications reveals that we already have a huge variety of technologies allowing the global analysis of systems. Central to most screening techniques lies the mass spectrometer as it enables outstanding speed and accuracy in protein identification.9 Large-scale proteomics is and will be used for three distinct applications: Expression proteomics, Cell map proteomics10 and Modular proteomics.

Table 1 Protein analysis technologies and their applications in large-scale proteomics. While enzymatic activity, receptor ligand, cytokine assays, biosensor, etc are integral to proteomics, they have not been included in the table due to their relative low-speed screening
Full size table

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1
Figure 2

References

  1. International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium . Initial sequencing and analysis of the human genome Nature 2001 409: 860–921

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Liang P, Pardee AB . Differential display of eukaryotic messenger RNA by means of the polymerase chain reaction Science 1992 257: 967–971

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Lashkari DA, DeRisi JL, McCusker JH, Namath AF, Gentile C, Gerlach JH et al . Yeast microarrays for genome wide parallel genetic and gene expression analysis Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 1997 94: 13057–13062

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. DeRisi J, Penland L, Brown PO, Bittner ML, Meltzer PS, Gerlach JH et al . Use of a cDNA microarray to analyse gene expression patterns in human cancer Nat Genet 1996 14: 457–460

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. Velculescu VE, Zhang L, Vogelstein B, Kinzler KW . Serial analysis of gene expression Science 1995 270: 484–487

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  6. Marcotte EM, Pellegrini M, Thompson MJ, Yeates TO, Eisenberg D . A combined algorithm for genome-wide prediction of protein function Nature 1999 402: 83–86

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  7. Enright AJ, Iliopoulos I, Kyrpides NC, Ouzounis CA . Protein interaction maps for complete genomes based on gene fusion events Nature 1999 402: 86–90

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  8. Krishna RG, Wold F . Post-translational modification of proteins Adv Enzymol Relat Areas Mol Biol 1993 67: 265–298

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  9. Corthals GL, Gygi SP, Aebersold R, Patterson SD . Identification of proteins by mass spectrometry. In: Rabilloud T (ed) Proteome Research: 2D Gel Electrophoresis and Detection Methods Springer: New York 1999 197–231.

    Google Scholar 

  10. Blackstock WP, Weir MP . Proteomics: quantitative and physical mapping of cellular proteins Trends Biotechnol 1999 17: 121–127.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  11. Gygi SP, Rist B, Gerber SA, Turecek F, Gelb MH, Aebersold R . Quantitative analysis of complex protein mixtures using isotope-coded affinity tags Nat Biotechnol 1999 17: 994–999

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  12. Hartwell LH, Hopfield JJ, Leibler S, Murray AW . From molecular to modular cell biology Nature 1999 402 (Suppl): C47–C52

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Sali A . Functional links between proteins Nature 1999 402: 23, 25–26

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Doolittle RF . Do you dig my groove? Nat Genet 1999 23: 6–8

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  15. Schwikowski B, Uetz P, Fields S . A network of protein-protein interactions in yeast Nat Biotechnol 2000 18: 1257–1261

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  16. Corthals GL, Wasinger VC, Hochstrasser DF, Sanchez J-C . The dynamic range of protein expression: a challenge for proteomic research Electrophoresis 2000 21: 1104–1115.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Mass Spectrometry & Protein Analysis Laboratory, Garvan Institute of Medical Research, Sydney, NSW, Australia

    G L Corthals

  2. Division of Human Biology, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, WA, USA

    P S Nelson

Authors
  1. G L Corthals
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. P S Nelson
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to G L Corthals.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Corthals, G., Nelson, P. Large-scale proteomics and its future impact on medicine. Pharmacogenomics J 1, 15–19 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.tpj.6500007

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.tpj.6500007

Search

Advanced search

Quick links