About
Proteomics is the study of proteins in biological systems, encompassing their structures, functions, and interactions. While genomic data can provide a basic template for the proteins in a system, proteomics is required to truly evaluate protein expression and how it changes in response to various stimuli.
It is well established that transcriptomic sequencing expression levels do not always correlate to experimentally observed protein expression levels. As proteins are responsible for carrying out most of the activities within a cell, it is imperative to study them directly in order to properly understand how cells function, and how these functions can be dysregulated, to cause disease states.
Proteomics offers medical researchers an array of vital information on cellular processes to better understand their disease states of interest and how to treat them.
Services
Our Proteomics Facility uses liquid chromatography paired with Orbitrap mass spectrometers to evaluate the protein contents of various biological samples.
Protein samples are first digested using Trypsin and the resulting peptides are loaded onto columns typically containing C18 material. The peptides are eluted on the LC using a gradient of increasing organic solvent to separate them, and they are subsequently injected into the mass spectrometer for mass spectral filtering, fragmentation, and detection.
The mass spectrometer obtains peptide spectra that can then be searched against relevant protein databases to determine the proteins present in the sample and their relative abundances. We offer qualitative and quantitative proteomics analysis. Simply put, qualitative proteomics can be used to identify proteins present in a sample. It can be used to identify interaction partners following a pulldown experiment or proteins present in a gel band. Additionally, it can be used to confirm the identity of purified proteins and synthesised peptides.
Our Proteomics Facility uses liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) to analyse samples from a variety of medical research projects and to measure the proteome. These highly sensitive instruments can provide impressive depth for proteomic analysis of complex samples.
Our Team
Associate Professor Mark Hodson
Rebekah Ziegman
Equipment
Thermo Fusion Tribrid Mass Spectrometer
Thermo Exactive HF-X Mass Spectrometer