The challenge of proteomics

Thanks to the information provided by sequencing projects, it is now possible to study effectively the functionality of the genome, and especially the analysis of products codified by genes: proteins. Proteomics, the science that studies proteins and their interactions in various living models, is an area of research and development that has evolved at a dizzying pace in recent years. At present, powerful analytical tools exist for carrying out these studies – increasingly exhaustively, quickly and precisely – by automation. Various large-scale projects have been commenced to study parts of the proteoma of particular significance, such as those of phosphorylated proteins and glycoproteins. These subgroups of proteins constitute what is known as phospho-proteoma and glycoproteoma or glycome, respectively. Other projects have focused on the description of the proteome of the specific tissues (including fluids such as plasma and urine), as well as on the study of the changes that take place in a proteome as a result of diseases such as cancer and Parkinson's. This kind of research has been directed both at the characterisation of the mechanisms involved in these processes and the search for proteins whose presence or absence could serve as a marker for the disease, and therefore as a means of diagnosis or as a target for the production of new medicines.