Global proteome analyses of SILAC-labeled skin cells

Physiological functions of skin cells are often altered in diseases. Since the underlying molecular mechanisms are generally executed by proteins, it is of interest to assess protein dynamics in normal and pathologically altered cells. These can be readily analyzed in relevant cell culture models by quantitative mass spectrometry (MS)-based proteomics, which is the method of choice to track the concerted action and spatial relocation of unknown involved factors in an unbiased way. Different quantitative MS strategies have been used to characterize protein dynamics. In this chapter we describe in detail the use of stable isotope labeling by amino acids in cell culture for an unbiased quantitative analysis of protein dynamics in the two major cell types of the skin, keratinocytes and fibroblasts.