蛋白质组中蛋白质磷酸化研究进展

随着后基因组时代的到来 ,对生命体器官、组织或细胞的全部蛋白质的表达、修饰及相互作用的研究已成为蛋白质组学的重要任务。蛋白质磷酸化是细胞内信号转导和酶调控最常见的机制之一 ,人类基因组约 2 %的基因编码 5 0 0种激酶和 10 0种磷酸酶。蛋白质磷酸化和去磷酸化作为原核和真核细胞表达调控的关键环节 ,了解其对功能的影响可以深入理解生命系统在分子水平的调控状况。目前蛋白质组磷酸化研究仍是功能基因组面临的重大课题 ,本文对此作一综述     

比较基因组学及其应用

比较基因组学是利用某些基因组图谱和测序获得的信息推测其他生物基因组的基因数目、位置、功能、表达机制和物种进化的学科。比较基因组学的发展与序列数据的积累密切相关,目前该学科已经成为研究生物基因组的最主要手段之一。利用FASTA、BLAST和CLUSTAL W等序列比对工具,种间的比较基因组学能够让人们了解物种间在基因组结构上的差异,发现基因的功能、物种的进化关系,以及进行功能基因的克隆。种内的比较基因组学研究主要涉及个体或群体基因组内诸如SNP、CNP等变异和多态现象。比较基因组学的研究结果不但有助于深入了解生命体的遗传机制,也有助于阐明人类复杂疾病的致病机制,揭示生命的本质规律。     

衰老机制研究进展

回顾了衰老机制研究发展的主要理论,包括:基因控制理论中的程序性衰老理论;基因组的不稳定性与衰老相关基因的表达;蛋白质与衰老关系中的错误灾变理论;蛋白质在衰老过程中的变化;多基因控制的进化理论;衰老的神经内分泌理论;衰老的免疫理论;生活速率理论;生殖与老化;氧化应激假设。介绍了利用SAM小鼠为动物模型进行衰老机制研究的进展。     

微生物蛋白组学的发展及前景

随着人类基因组草图的绘制成功,标志着后基因组时代的到来。由于基因的功能主要是通过其表达蛋白质实现,要了解基因的全部信息,必须深入研究不同基因编码的蛋白质,因此蛋白质组学(proteomics)在生命科学研究中具有重要的地位。蛋白组学是一门新兴科学,目前还处于起步阶段,随着这项研究的不断深化,必将对人类的生活和生产带来重大影响。主要目的是对国内外蛋白组学的发展、研究现状以及应用前景进行简要阐述。     

真核基因可变剪接研究现状与展望

mRNA前体(pre-mRNA)的可变剪接是控制基因表达和产生蛋白质多样性的重要机制,是功能基因组时代的研究重点之一。生物信息学在识别可变剪接基因及其结构、分析可变剪接的功能和调控方式等方面具有重要作用。除了耗时的实验研究,识别可变剪接基因及其结构主要通过EST、mRNA等转录数据与基因组序列进行比对,获得同一基因的不同结构方式。分析蛋白质产物可对可变剪接的功能进行预测;潜在调控元件的统计分析则可为可变剪接调控机制的研究提供必要的数据。转录数据的时空信息以及比较基因组学对理解可变剪接信息的精确调控将提供重要资料。可变剪接及其调控机制的深入研究将为基因组和蛋白质组之间的对接提供重要的桥梁。     

人类可变翻译事件的研究

可变翻译事件是基因翻译过程中的一种非常重要的机制, 它可以增加基因产物的多样性. 虽然目前报道了一些可变翻译基因, 但是这些研究提供的信息还十分有限, 并不足以推广到整个基因组水平. 已知的可变翻译的基因数目很少, 因此对可变翻译机制的了解也是非常有限的, 这就需要发现更多的可变翻译基因. 然而, 依靠传统的实验方法去发现可变翻译基因十分费时费力, 因此通过系统地研究公共数据库中的大量已测序的蛋白质序列, 并且预测了1237个蛋白质簇作为可变翻译基因. 计人类基因组中大约有8%~10% 的基因会发生可变翻译现象. 这个结果大大地提高了可变翻译基因的数量级, 意味着可变翻译在基因的翻译过程中是一个十分普遍的现象.     

微生物功能基因组学研究

自从1995年流感嗜血杆菌的基因组序列测定完成之后[1],目前已有75种(株)微生物的基因组完成测序,160多种(株)微生物的基因组测序正在进行中[2]。随着各种微生物基因组测序工作的不断完成和序列信息的积累,微生物基因组学研究的重点已由结构基因组学向功能基因组学转移。微生物功能基因组学研究不仅要阐明微生物基因组内每个基因的作用或功能,还要研究基因的调节及表达谱,进而从整个基因组及其全套蛋白质产物的结构、功能、机理的高度去了解微生物生命活动的全貌,揭示微生物世界的各种前所未知的规律,并使之为人类和社会服务。与真核生物相比,虽然微生物的基因组相对简单,但微生物基因组学研究仍具有重大的科学和经济意义。在细菌基因组中,既有编码在极端环境下起催化作用的酶的基因,也有编码分解化学污染物的酶的基因,这些基因在真核细胞是不存在的。通过微生物功能基因组学研究,还能发现药物靶位和疫苗抗原。微生物基因的功能及表达研究结果也能为研究复杂生物的基因功能提供参考。近些年微生物功能基因组学研究受到了普遍重视。日本组织了十几所大学和研究机构,计划用5年时间完成大肠杆菌的功能基因组研究[3]。日本还与欧洲联合正在开展枯草杆菌功能基因组学研究[4]。其它微生物的功能基因组学研究也在进行中。由于微生物的种类繁多,功能基因组研究的内容又较丰富,要全面介绍微生物功能基因组学研究是困难的。本文仅从未知功能基因的鉴定、药物靶位及疫苗抗原研究、致病机制研究、生物功能图谱研究4个方面进行简要的评述。     

功能基因组学和蛋白质组学在胚胎植入机制研究中的应用

胚胎植入是人类和哺乳动物生殖过程中的重要步骤,其分子机制至今尚未完全明了.近年来,功能基因组学和蛋白质组学等高通量检测新技术已广泛应用于胚胎植入机制的研究领域.通过从整体上观察胚胎植入过程中基因和蛋白质表达的变化,全面地筛选出大量胚胎植入相关因子,从而为在分子水平上阐明胚胎植入过程中的调控网络打下了基础.     

外显子组测序技术在人类疾病研究中的应用

外显子组测序是针对基因组中的蛋白质编码区,靶向富集外显子区域测序,以发现疾病相关遗传变异的技术。该技术近年越来越多地应用于发现人类基因组低频变异、鉴定单基因遗传病致病基因和肿瘤等复杂疾病易感基因研究,成为人类疾病相关变异研究的重要工具。综述了外显子组测序技术的基本原理及其在人类疾病相关基因研究中的应用。     

长链非编码RNA与恶性肿瘤发生发展关系的研究进展

人类基因组数目庞大,其形成的基因调控网络控制着组织、器官细胞的增殖、分化和凋亡。但是,整个基因组中仅约2%的基因是编码RNA,可以翻译成蛋白质,98%左右的基因为非编码RNA。之前人们普遍认为非编码RNA不能翻译有效的蛋白质产生相应的功能,被视为基因组中的"废物"。目前,大量研究表明非编码RNA并不是基因组序列中没用的产物,而是未知的"黑暗物质",已有大量的研究发现非编码RNA在多种生物过程中起着重要的作用,并且在一些重大疾病如肿瘤、心血管的发生发展中发挥着不可小觑的作用。本文就长链非编码RNA在恶性肿瘤的发生发展中的作用机制做一综述。     

In‐depth proteomic analysis of whole testis tissue from the adult rhesus macaque

The rhesus macaque is similar to humans both anatomically and physiologically as a primate, and has therefore been used extensively in medical and biological research, including reproductive physiology. Despite sequencing of the macaque genome, limited postgenomic studies have been performed to date. In studies aimed at characterizing spermatogenesis, we successfully identified 9078 macaque testis proteins corresponding to 8662 genes, using advanced MS and an optimized proteomics platform, indicative of complex protein compositions during macaque spermatogenesis. Immunohistochemistry analysis further revealed the presence of proteins from different types of testicular cells, including Sertoli cells, Leydig cells, and various stages of germ cells. Our data provide expression evidence at protein level of 3010 protein‐coding genes in 8662 identified testis genes for the first time. We further identified 421 homologous genes from the proteome already known to be essential for male infertility in mouse. Comparative analysis of the proteome showed high similarity with the published human testis proteome, implying that macaque and human may use similar proteins to regulate spermatogenesis. Our in‐depth analysis of macaque spermatogenesis provides a rich resource for further studies, and supports the utility of macaque as a suitable model for the study of human reproduction.     

Proteomics in radiation research: present status and future perspectives

Rapidly developing postgenome research has made proteins an attractive target for biological analysis. The well-established term of proteome is defined as the complete set of proteins expressed in a given cell, tissue or organism. Unlike the genome, a proteome is rapidly changing as it tends to adapt to microenvironmental signals. The systematic analysis of the proteome at a given time and state is referred to as proteomics. This technique provides information on the molecular and cellular mechanisms that regulate physiology and pathophysiology of the cell. Applications of proteome profiling in radiation research are increasing. However, the large-scale proteomics data sets generated need to be integrated into other fields of radiation biology to facilitate the interpretation of radiation-induced cellular and tissue effects. The aim of this review is to introduce the most recent developments in the field of radiation proteomics.     

The human proteomics initiative (HPI)

The availability of the human genome sequence has enabled the exploration and exploitation of the human genome and proteome to begin. Research has now focussed on the annotation of the genome and in particular of the proteome. With expert annotation extracted from the literature by biologists as the foundation, it has been possible to expand into the areas of data mining and automatic annotation. With further development and integration of pattern recognition methods and the application of alignments clustering, proteome analysis can now be provided in a meaningful way. These various approaches have been integrated to attach, extract and combine as much relevant information as possible to the proteome. This resource should be valuable to users from both research and industry.     

A question of size: the eukaryotic proteome and the problems in defining it

We discuss the problems in defining the extent of the proteomes for completely sequenced eukaryotic organisms (i.e. the total number of protein-coding sequences), focusing on yeast, worm, fly and human. (i) Six years after completion of its genome sequence, the true size of the yeast proteome is still not defined. New small genes are still being discovered, and a large number of existing annotations are being called into question, with these questionable ORFs (qORFs) comprising up to one-fifth of the ‘current’ proteome. We discuss these in the context of an ideal genome-annotation strategy that considers the proteome as a rigorously defined subset of all possible coding sequences (‘the orfome’). (ii) Despite the greater apparent complexity of the fly (more cells, more complex physiology, longer lifespan), the nematode worm appears to have more genes. To explain this, we compare the annotated proteomes of worm and fly, relating to both genome-annotation and genome evolution issues. (iii) The unexpectedly small size of the gene complement estimated for the complete human genome provoked much public debate about the nature of biological complexity. However, in the first instance, for the human genome, the relationship between gene number and proteome size is far from simple. We survey the current estimates for the numbers of human genes and, from this, we estimate a range for the size of the human proteome. The determination of this is substantially hampered by the unknown extent of the cohort of pseudogenes (‘dead’ genes), in combination with the prevalence of alternative splicing. (Further information relating to yeast is available at http://genecensus.org/yeast/orfome)     

Proteome-scale analysis of biochemical activity

During the last 10 years, there has been a large increase in the number of genome sequences available for study, altering the way that the biology of organisms is studied. In particular, scientific attention has increasingly focused on the proteome, and specifically on the role of all the proteins encoded by the genome. We focus here on several aspects of this problem. We describe several technologies in widespread use to clone genes on a genome-wide scale, and to express and purify the proteins encoded by these genes. We also describe a number of methods that have been developed to analyze various biochemical properties of the proteins, with attention to the methodology and the limitations of the approaches, followed by a look at possible developments in the next decade.     

Proteomics, nanotechnology and molecular diagnostics

Sequencing of the human genome opened the way to the exploration of the proteome and this has lead to the identification of large numbers of proteins in complex biological samples. The identification of diagnostic patterns in samples taken from patients to aid diagnosis is in the early stages of development. The solution to many of the technical challenges in proteomics and protein based molecular diagnostics will be found in new applications of nanomaterials. This review describes some of the physical and chemical principles underlying nanomaterials and devices and outlines how they can be used in proteomics; developments which are establishing nanoproteomics as a new field. Nanoproteomics will provide the platform for the discovery of next generation biomarkers. The field of molecular diagnostics will then come of age.     

The Kazusa cDNA project for identification of unknown human transcripts

The Kazusa cDNA project is unique by its focus on sequencing large human cDNAs (>4 kb). We describe an overview of the human cDNA sequence data accumulated during the first phase of the project on over 2000 cDNAs and its integration with the genome sequence. In the second phase of the project, which aims at bridging the human genome and proteome using the output of the first phase, we are very carefully evaluating our cDNA clones and, when necessary, experimentally revising them.