Technical Scope of Proteomics—Beyond Protein Identification

1 TECHNICAL SCOPE OF PROTEOMICS - BEYOND PROTEIN IDENTIFICATION 

Current proteomic methods of protein separation by 2D gel and/or high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), as well as the identification of proteins by mass spectrometry (MS) in conjunction with protein databanks and several software programs are satisfactory. These methods must be improved in the future to be more efficient. Some improvements that are expected in the near future must include the following strategies as discussed by others as well  

Preferential removal of high-abundance proteins to enrich a low-abundance protein. 

Introduction to Proteomics Principles and Applications, By Nawin C. Mishra Copyright 2010 John Wiley Sons, Inc. 

Miniaturization of the platform is required to scale down the process of protein analysis, which involves handling a much smaller amount of the sample. It may soon be possible to scale down the size of the sample from a nanoliter to a picoliter, which reduces the amount of protein from fetomoles to attomoles. Miniaturization will require use of microfluidics to handle a miniscule of sample without any loss by absorption or by evaporation. In this way, it will be possible to analyze the protein sample on a protein chip. 

---