More and more genomes of lower as well as higher organisms are completely sequenced. In mammals, approximately 30,000 genes encode a yet unknown number of proteins. This set of proteins is known as the proteome, the PROTEin complement to a genOME. Protein interactions are the foundations of enumerous biochemical pathways. To unravel these interactions is the challenge of proteomics, the concept destined to eluminate the function of the proteome and biological processes.
A wide variety of Protein Analysis Tools are used. Proteins of the proteome can be separated using two-dimensional gel electrophoresis (2-DE) and characterized by e.g., mass spectrometry (MS) and database searches. In analogy to DNA-microarray technology, protein microarrays can be used to study changes in protein expression levels or protein-protein interactions.
This module introduces the ExPASy (Expert Protein Analysis System) proteome WWW server, because it provides access to a variety of databases and analytical tools in the field of proteomics. It is developed at the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics (SIB) and dedicated to serve the Life Sciences community.
