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Updated: May 15, 2026
06:02
Arbovirus Infections As Screening Tools for the Identification of Viral Immunomodulators and Host Antiviral Factors
Published on: September 13, 2018
Identification of Virus-Host Interactions
1College of Medicine, Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine, Bradenton, FL, USA. tveenstra@lecom.edu.
Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology
|May 13, 2026
Summary
Proteins function in complexes with other molecules, not in isolation. Proteomics techniques now rapidly identify these interactions, significantly advancing our understanding of cellular functions.
Area of Science:
- Biochemistry
- Molecular Biology
- Proteomics
Background:
- Proteins rarely function alone; they form complexes with other biomolecules like nucleic acids, lipids, and other proteins.
- Early proteomics focused on protein identification, but quickly evolved to study protein-protein interactions and complex formation.
Purpose of the Study:
- To highlight the importance of studying protein complexes and biomolecular interactions.
- To showcase the advancements in proteomics techniques for identifying and characterizing protein complexes.
Main Methods:
- Immunoaffinity purification under denaturing conditions for protein complex extraction.
- Chromatography and gel electrophoresis for fractionating complexes.
- Mass spectrometry (MS) for identifying component proteins and Western blotting for validation.
Main Results:
- The CORUM database (v3.1) catalogs 5134 mammalian protein complexes.
- The hu.MAP 2.0 database contains over 7000 human protein complexes.
- The IntAct database holds over 700,000 binary molecular interactions from published experiments.
Conclusions:
- The rapid characterization of protein complexes is a major achievement in modern proteomics.
- Extensive databases and ongoing research underscore the critical role of biomolecular interactions in cellular function.
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