Towards the analysis of protein species: an overview about strategies and methods

The deciphering of the relationship between function and exact chemical composition of a defined protein species in the context of the proteome is one of the major challenges in proteomics and molecular cell physiology. In the Special Issue of Amino Acids about the analysis of protein species current approaches are reviewed and new methods described focusing on the investigation of protein species. On the basis of the articles in this Special Issue it can be summarized that first important and promising steps towards the comprehensive analysis of protein species have been done. It is already possible to obtain full (100%) sequence coverage of proteins by mass spectrometry, if the amount of proteins available for their analysis allows their proteolytic degradation by more than one protease and the subsequent mass spectrometric analysis of the resulting peptides. Employing affinity chromatography helps to analyse proteins with defined post-translational modifications thus opening a targeted view on e.g. the phosphoproteome. In the future the aim to identify the exact chemical composition including not one but every posttranslational modification and complete sequence coverage on the protein species level should be achievable with further progress in sample preparation techniques, especially concerning separation techniques on the protein level, mass spectrometry and algorithms for mass spectrometric data processing. For determining the function of defined protein species a closer cooperation between cell biologists and proteomics experts is desirable.