Technology development for proteome analysis incorporating separations and mass spectrometry

生物科学的许多重大进展都伴随着分析化学的技术进步，这为样品分析提供了新的机会。蛋白质组学就是一个很好的例子，质谱、分离科学和计算分析的进步已经允许对蛋白质进行全面的表征。在这样做时，人们可以基本上获得生物体的“分子”描述，并因此提供对生物学途径的更好理解，帮助药物设计，并且还提供识别生物体的特定状态的分子指纹（a.k.a.疾病生物标志物）。随着新技术的产生，蛋白质组分析目前面临的挑战不断发展。曾经是电离和质谱模式解释的问题，蛋白质组学现在专注于进一步增加样品通量，以实现对临床重要样品大小的分析。蛋白质修饰的表征、蛋白质表达变化的定量和质谱数据的验证也继续是该领域持续研究的主题。

Many significant advancements in biological science have followed technological advancements in analytical chemistry, which afford new opportunities for sample analysis. Proteomics is a perfect example of this, where advances in mass spectrometry, separation science, and computational analysis have permitted the comprehensive characterization of proteins. In doing so, one can essentially obtain a 'molecular' description of an organism, and therefore provide an improved understanding of biological pathways, assist in drug design, and also provide molecular fingerprints which identify a particular state of an organism (a.k.a. disease biomarkers). Current challenges in proteome analysis continue to evolve, as new technologies are created. What was once a problem of ionization and interpretation of mass spectrometry patterns, proteomics now focuses (among other aspects) on further increasing sample throughput to enable the analysis of clinically significant sample sizes. The characterization of protein modifications, quantitation of changing protein expression, and the validation of mass spectral data also continue to be topics of continued research in this field.