Proteome and Proteomics for the Research on Protein Alterations in Aging

Abstract: Functional decline of tissues in aged animals is a result of cellular aging. Though any process of somatic cell aging basically depends on genomic instructions, phenotypes of aged cells are expressed in a given internal environment of each cell type that was made with translated proteins and post‐translationally modified products. Therefore, research on age‐dependent protein alterations in each cell type is very important in clarifying mechanisms of aging. The novel term “proteome” is a compound of “protein” and “genome,” which means constitutive whole proteins including post‐translationally modified products in a cell type. Proteomics is a novel strategy for analyzing proteomes. In proteomics, high resolution two‐dimensional electrophoresis is exclusively performed for isolation of proteins followed by mass spectrometry for identification of proteins and determination of modifications. Thus, proteomics is becoming appreciated as a powerful tool to find out proteins responsible for cellular aging, symptoms of senility and geriatric diseases.