Population proteomics: addressing protein diversity in humans

In the past several years, proteomics and its subdiscipline clinical proteomics have been engaged in the discovery of the next generation protein of biomarkers. As the effort and the intensive debate it has sparked continue, it is becoming apparent that a paradigm shift is needed in proteomics in order to truly comprehend the complexity of the human proteome and assess its subtle variations among individuals. This review introduces the concept of population proteomics as a future direction in proteomics research. Population proteomics is the study of protein diversity in human populations. High-throughput, top-down mass spectrometric approaches are employed to investigate, define and understand protein diversity and modulations across and within populations. Population proteomics is a discovery-oriented endeavor with a goal of establishing the incidence of protein structural variations and quantitative regulation of these modifications. Assessing human protein variations among and within populations is viewed as a paramount undertaking that can facilitate clinical proteomics' effort in discovery and validation of protein features that can be used as markers for early diagnosis of disease, monitoring of disease progression and assessment of therapy. This review outlines the growing need for analyzing individuals' proteomes and describes the approaches that are likely to be applied in such a population proteomics endeavor.