Global Proteomic Profiling and Identification of Stress-Responsive Proteins Using Two-Dimensional Gel Electrophoresis

Global proteome profiling is a direct representation of the protein set in an organism, organ, tissues, or an organelle. One of the main objectives of proteomic analysis is the comparison and relative quantitation of proteins under a defined set of conditions. Two-dimensional gel electrophoresis (2-DE) has gained prominence over the last 4 decades for successfully aiding differential proteomics, providing visual confirmation of changes in protein abundance, which otherwise cannot be predicted from genome analysis. Each protein spot on 2-DE gel can be analyzed by its abundance, location, or even its presence or absence. This versatile gel-based method combines and utilizes the finest principle for separation of protein complexes by virtue of their charge and mass, visual mapping coupled with successful mass spectrometric identification of individual proteins.