Proteomic analysis of biopsied human colonic mucosa

: Pediatric gastroenterologists have a unique opportunity to study the proteins in the gastrointestinal tract. To assess the power of proteomic studies we compared 2 methods for analysis of proteins in normal human colonic mucosa: 2-dimensional gel electrophoresis (2DE) and 2-dimensional liquid chromatography (2DLC) in conjunction with mass spectrometry. We used Ingenuity Pathway Analysis to examine these proteins regarding function, location, and relation to disease.

: 2DLC identified 550 proteins, whereas 2DE identified 107 proteins, 18 of which were not observed with 2DLC. The function associated with the largest number of proteins for both methods was cancer (236 proteins with 2DLC, 61 proteins with 2DE). The largest group of proteins was from the cytoplasm (49.3% from 2DE and 49.1% from 2DLC). Two hundred seventy of the total 568 proteins were related to 26 different categories of human disease and 200 of these 270 were described in large intestine, 227 were described in blood, and 149 were described in serum or plasma.

: These methods are complementary, although many more proteins were identified with 2DLC. This suggests that 2DLC should have greater utility in examining changes in the proteome of the colonic mucosa during disease than 2DE. However, some proteins found were unique to 2DE, and thus the methods chosen for a given analysis must be matched with the proteins to be studied. When pediatric gastroenterologists use proteomic methods, there is a new opportunity to increase our understanding of the gastrointestinal tract in health and disease.