title: Methods and applications of absolute protein quantification in microbial systems.
abstract: In the last years the scientific community faced an increased need to provide high-quality data on the concentration of single proteins within a cell. Especially against the background of the fast evolving field of systems biology this does not only apply for a few proteins but preferably for the whole proteome of the organism. Therefore there has been a rapid development from pure identification of proteins via characterization of changes between different conditions by relative protein quantification towards determination of absolute protein amounts for hundreds of protein species in a cell. This review aims for discussion of different small-scale and large-scale approaches for absolute protein quantification in bacterial cells to picture biological processes and explore life in deeper detail. The presented advantages and limitations of various methods may provide interested researchers help to appraise available methods, select the most appropriate technique and avoid common pitfalls during determination of protein concentration in a complex sample.
authors.affiliation: Institute for Microbiology, Ernst Moritz Arndt Universität Greifswald, D-17487 Greifswald, Germany. Electronic address: sandra.maass@uni-greifswald.de.
authors.forename: Sandra
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Maaß
authors.affiliation: Institute for Microbiology, Ernst Moritz Arndt Universität Greifswald, D-17487 Greifswald, Germany.
authors.forename: Dörte
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Becher
mesh_terms: D001419:Bacteria / Q000378:metabolism*; D001426:Bacterial Proteins / Q000378:metabolism*; D040901:Proteomics / Q000379:methods*
chemical_list: D001426:Bacterial Proteins
keywords: 2D-PAGE; Absolute protein quantification; Bacteria; Mass spectrometry