"This is 10 times the number of proteins identified" and previously reported, said Richard D. Smith, a senior scientist and Battelle Fellow at the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. The proteomics advance was announced Saturday at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting.

"Because there is huge interest in determining their utility as biomarkers for different diseases, I want to emphasize the large numbers of proteins now identified in plasma," said Smith, a Battelle Fellow at PNNL and director of the National Institutes of Health Proteomics Research Resource Center at PNNL's Richland, Wash., campus.

"The large coverage is important because proteins from distressed cells in essentially any tissue that can leak into the blood stream might be found in plasma, given sufficiently sensitive methods of analysis," Smith said. "Thus, there is significant interest in cataloging the range of proteins present in blood plasma as potential biomarkers of disease states based upon their abundance change from normal levels."

A fast and sensitive proteomic analysis is necessary for such massive screenings of bodily fluids as needed to confidently identify biomarkers and to bring into sharp focus proteins that are signs of trouble to come.

Proteomics is akin to reading the proteins like tea leaves, minus the mystic, and generally involves measurements aimed at determining what proteins are present and at what levels. Smith's group has developed an advanced form of mass spectrometry for this purpose: Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance (FTICR). PNNL's instrumentation can ransack a sample for proteins that defy detection by other means, having recently pushed the detection limits to
'"/>

Contact: Bill Cannon
cannon@pnl.gov
509-375-3732
DOE/Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
14-Feb-2004