Spectrometry 'could help analyse protein modifications'

Scientists have used spectrometry to help analyse protein variants.

Olgica Trenchevska and Dobrin Nedelkovhighlight highlight in a paper for Proteome Science that human proteins are rendered more complex by genetic variations and post-translational modifications.

By using mass spectrometry, the scientists suggest they can better identify proteins that will act as more sensitive biomarkers than others.

They used Cystatin C, which is a cysteine proteinase inhibitor, as a target analyte and analysed their findings using mass spectrometric immunoassays.

Concluding that this method is effective in identifying proteins, the scientists explain that it can therefore be used "as a part of a specific protein biomarker discovery/rediscovery effort to delineate the role of these variants in the onset of the disease, progression and response to therapy".

However, they add that this method may also be harnessed to understand human protein diversity more broadly.

Proteome Science is a peer reviewed journal which offers open-access articles as a resource for those seeking research in this field.