No one knows precisely how many proteins make up any organism's proteome. In humans, the pro-teome may outnumber the genome by 10 to 30 times in sheer numbers of species. In fact, the complexity is likely very much higher when the plethora of post-translational modifications is considered. Nonetheless, microarrays help scientists identify proteins from different cells and under various conditions, which can be used in both basic research and biomedicine. Tony Pawson, director of research at the University of Toronto's Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute, says, "We are entering an exciting phase, but I would say that we have just gotten started." In fact, protein microarrays themselves are just becoming widely available and more broadly applied. These devices―like proteomics itself―remain new and largely under development. "The difficulty with proteins," says Pawson, "is that they are more complex than DNA, and when you put them on chips they tend to denature." Consequently, much of the work in protein microarrays involves learning to make proteins that remain functional on a chip.
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