Celebrating 90% completion of the Human Proteome

Twenty years after publication of the human genome, protein scientists have completed the first draft of 90% of the human proteins that are the real substance of health or disease. Why 20 years? “The finishing phase of the human proteome is more difficult than that for the human genome, which, in fact, was accelerated due to the maturity of the sequencing technologies, computing power, and bioinformatics advances. Proteomics is more difficult due to the higher complexity of the polypeptide chain composed of 20 amino acids compared with the 4 nucleotides of DNA, the >400 post-translational modifications of amino acids, the splice forms, the alternate start sites, and the proteolytic processing of all polypeptides, which together generate millions of proteoforms and a dynamic proteome.”  MORE

Image Credit:   ACS Publications