Rafferty Flashcards
(191 cards)
What is proteomics?
- the qualitative and quantitative comparison of proteomes under diff conditions to further unravel biological processes
What is the proteome?
- sum of all the proteins in an organism, a tissue, a cell, a subcellular organelle or simply the sample being studied
Why study proteomes, and not just genomes?
- genomes are (largely) fixed, but proteomes dynamic
How much do prot exp levels vary?
- varies hugely
- and not always correlated w/ signif, ie. some of the most important key regulators and signalling mols have v low exp levels
- anywhere between 30-80% of genes expressed at any 1 time in a cell/tissue
How well do the transcriptome and proteome correlate?
- if plot prot abundance against mRNA abundance, then quite good correlation at higher levels
- but when v few levels of particular mRNA transcripts then no.s don’t correlate well
Why does the mRNA seq ≠ prot seq?
- PTMs: permanent and temporary
- -> prot splicing (inteins)
- -> additions/deletions, eg. glycosylation (one state of prot might be in active form and some in inactive form, and this has effect)
How does proteomics account for diffs between mRNA seqs and the prot seq?
- proteomics seeks to identify and quantify all the prot components taking into account the variations
What diff proteomic analysis methods are there?
- 1D = polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (PAGE)
- 2D = SDS-PAGE
- liquid chromatography (LC)
- mass spectrometry
- prot microarrays
What are the advantages and disadvantages of 1D PAGE?
- easy and quick
- but poor resolution –> as shows so many proteins, one band may represent many diff prots w/ varying dominance
How does 2D PAGE work?
- separate by protein pI in 1st dimension –> isoelectric focusing gel
- then separate by mass in 2nd dimension = SDS-PAGE
What are the advantages and disadvantages of 2D PAGE?
- each indiv protein could be a single signal, but at most 4/5
- resolution still not great, and can be misled by multiple proteins becoming 1 signal, but much better than 1D
- problems w/ reproducibility, but has become more routine
- messier to set up and labour intensive
What is an eg. of how 2D PAGE can be a useful technique?
- comp B. thailandensis (not pathogenic) w/ B. pseudomallei (v pathogenic)
- v similar genomes, so comp proteomes, can see what diffs there are and ask if these particular prots have a functional role in pathogenesis of B. pseudomallei
How does liquid chromatography (LC) work?
- separation of whole prots or peptide fragments in solution
- can detect w/ anion/cation, reverse phase (RP) (looks at hydrophobicity properties), affinity (‘natural’) or tags
- -> fractionation of samples
What is the main technique behind proteomics?
- mass spec
How does mass spec work?
- separate samples on the basis of mass (m) : charge (z) ratio (m/z)
What are the diff parts of a mass spectrometer?
- DIAG*
- a part to prod ionised forms of sample in the gas phase
- a device to separate ions out by m/z ratio
- a device to detect diff ions and gen a signal
What state must ions be in for mass spec?
- gas
How can ions be ionised for mass spec?
- some species naturally ionised
- or can be gen by molecular collisions –> typically addition or removal of protons:
M + nH+ → [M + H]n+
(or M → Mn- + nH+)
What are the 2 primary means for generating ionised samples?
- Matrix-assisted laser desorption ionisation (MALDI)
- Electrospray ionisation (ESI)
How does MALDI work?
- sample mixed w/ matrix compound
- laser strikes matrix, puts energy into system and species becomes ionised
- causes particles to fly to 1 side of chamber (ie. if gen +ve species then to -ve side of chamber), through chamber wall and these charged gaseous particles can enter next stage of process
What is an advantage of MALDI?
- can archive sample as don’t blast everything in 1 go and can reanalyse
How does ESI work?
- solution of proteins/peptides fired down finely drawn capillary
- end of capillary is charged, so eventually fire out charged droplets from the end
- then put them into evaporation chamber
- droplets become smaller as lose water
- so repulsion increases and eventually burst apart into gas phase
What is an advantage of ESI?
- can use for larger prots, as charge picked up is greater, so m/z ratio is smaller, which is more tractable for downstream analysis of whats in the sample
Is MALDI or ESI used more?
- MALDI