LA PROTEOMICA EN LA ERA POSTGENóMICA

the main challenge of modern biology is to understand the expression, function and regulation of the whole set of proteins codified by an organism, which is the objective of the new field of proteomics. proteins are the effectors of cellular work and the knowledge of their global expression profiles and changes under physiological and pathological conditions can help us to understand the complex network of interactions involved in cellular function. two-dimensional electrophoresis (2-de) is the central technology in proteomics. at present no other technique has the throughput and high resolution of 2-de for the separation of thousands of proteins in one procedure and for the analysis of post-and co-translation modifications, not predictable from the genome sequence. the scope of applications extends from proteome analysis, to cell signaling, disease markers and cancer.