Background
The proteome is the expressed protein complement of a
cell, matrix, organelle, tissue, organ, or organism. It includes
all isoforms and posttranslational variants and varies with time. The
overall technical approach in proteomics was enabled by two major
technical advances: the ability to fully sequence genomes and the
ability to analyze proteins by mass spectrometry. Comparative proteomics defines
the differences in expression of proteins among different biological
states (e.g., control vs. treatment, healthy vs. disease, specific
genotype vs. wild type) or for affinity purifications. The
Department of Biological Sciences of Columbia University has
established the Comparative Proteomics Center to apply these emerging
technologies to a wide range of biomedical research studies. We
use label-free shotgun profiling as well as gel-based techniques to
perform these comparisons.