Pushing the Proteomics Envelope

The complexity of ‘omics offers challenges and opportunities. That’s particularly true of proteomics and metabolomics. About 20,000 proteins make up the encoded human proteome, and post-translational modifications add many more. The human metabolome—the intermediates or end products of reactions—consists of more than 100,000 small molecules.

The makeup of any area of ’omics can vary in time and tissue. The metabolome in particular is very dynamic, because metabolites get created, degraded, absorbed, modified, transported and more.

Although the depth and dynamics of proteomics and metabolomics make them complicated to study, these biological entities offer endless opportunities to better understand basic biology and to improve the accuracy of precision medicine.