Introduction to Peptidomics - The Analysis of Native Peptides
The term proteomics, coined by Marc Wilkins in 1996, is a fusion of the terms protein and genomics. Technologies that allow the analysis of proteomes (proteomics) have made significant advances over the last years (i.e., mass spectrometry). Proteomics is widely used in research in academia as well as in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries.
In contrast to proteomics peptidomics (=low molecular weight proteomics) is focused on the analysis of the full complement of small proteins and peptides. The term peptide is typically used for polypeptides in the range up to approximately 20 kDa molecular weight. Peptides are most often generated by proteolytic processing (specific substrate cleavage by proteases) of proteins. Many pathological and physiological processes are associated with changes in protease expression or activation and these changes are captured or represented in altered peptide profiles. Due to this capability endogenous peptides have generated increasing interest.
To leverage insights in Peptidomics the following short movie (duration 4:52 min., Flash Video) presents it at a glance: