Proteome and proteomics for the research on protein alterations in aging

Functional decline of tissues in aged animals is a result of cellular aging. Though any process of somatic cell aging basically depends on genomic instructions, phenotypes of aged cells are expressed in a given internal environment of each cell type that was made with translated proteins and post-translationally modified products. Therefore, research on age-dependent protein alterations in each cell type is very important in clarifying mechanisms of aging. The novel term "proteome" is a compound of "protein" and "genome," which means constitutive whole proteins including post-translationally modified products in a cell type. Proteomics is a novel strategy for analyzing proteomes. In proteomics, high resolution two-dimensional electrophoresis is exclusively performed for isolation of proteins followed by mass spectrometry for identification of proteins and determination of modifications. Thus, proteomics is becoming appreciated as a powerful tool to find out proteins responsible for cellular aging, symptoms of senility and geriatric diseases.