Proteomics and Nucleotide Profiling as Tools for Biomarker and Drug Target Discovery

A proteome is the entire set of proteins that a cell type produces. We can study proteomes using the knowledge of genomes because genes code for mRNAs, and the mRNAs encode proteins. Although mRNA analysis is a step in the right direction, not all mRNAs are translated into proteins.
Proteomics is the study of proteomes' function. It involves the large-scale systematic study of the proteome to denote the protein complement expressed by a genome. Scientist Mark Wilkins coined the term...

Ribosome profiling or ribo-sequencing is a deep sequencing technique that produces a snapshot of active translation in a cell. It selectively sequences the mRNAs protected by ribosomes to get an insight into a cell’s translation landscape at any given point in time.
Applications of ribosome profiling
Ribosome profiling has many applications, including in vivo monitoring of translation inside a particular organ or tissue type and quantifying new protein synthesis levels.
The technique...

Microarrays are high-throughput and relatively inexpensive assays that can be automated to analyze large quantities of data at a time. They are used in genome-wide studies to compare gene or protein expression under two varied conditions, such as healthy and diseased states. Microarrays consist of glass or silica slides on which probe molecules are covalently attached through surface functionalization. Most commonly, the slides are prepared through the chemisorption of silanes to silica...

Drug discovery is a multifaceted process involving extensive screening, testing, and optimization of lead compounds to identify potential new drugs for therapeutic use. It combines several approaches, including screening large numbers of natural products, chemical modification of known active molecules, identification of new drug targets, and rational design based on biological mechanisms and drug-receptor structure. These approaches are carried out in both academic research laboratories and...