Protein functions and biological contexts

The availability of a rough draft of the predicted human proteome allows an evaluation of the extent to which the predicted and biochemical functions of proteins are in alignment, and the roles of different technologies and a pproaches to understanding human diseases and instantiating therapeutics. M icroarray technologies at the transcriptomic and proteomic levels can be hi gh throughput and excellent for diagnostic purposes, but their informationa l outputs are inferior in quality to those emerging from the co- and post-t ranslational levels and from antibody-based molecular anatomy. It is now ab undantly clear that data transfer between the transcriptome and proteome is not straightforward, and that increasing emphasis needs to be placed on pu re proteomic approaches at the structural, quantitative, cell biological an d phenomic levels, with special focus on embryogenic and foetal processes. Finally, the precision genetic engineering that is required to evaluate the functional significance of context-dependent protein interactions underpin ned by post-translational modifications and proteolytic cleavage events, is still too time consuming and rudimentary to be implemented on a large scal e in the mouse, and basic principles and first order networks will need to be sorted out in even simpler model systems such as Drosophila.