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'Mix and match' proteins found

Rearranged peptides may play big role in immunity.

Proteins seem to be more changeable than biologists once thought. Human cells can apparently shuffle the components of these molecules — dicing them up and reordering them to make new structures.

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Posted by Nicola Jones on September 08, 2006
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Biologically these findings are highly interesting and should ignite a series of investigations into the roles of these spilced peptides. It is af cause also interesting to know which peptides are chosen and for what reason.
Another perspective is that identification of proteins by mass spectrometry (MS) in a proteomic research project may be hamperede if the "protein" that one is trying to identify is such a spliced variant. The researcher may think that the "protein" is one of the proteins from which the identified peptide originate. In contrast, many of the "spots" which researches have tried to identify by MS, that have shown peptides from more than one protein and threfore been disregarded, may in fact have been such spliced peptides.

Posted by: Torben Osterlund, PhD | September 11, 2006 12:39 PM

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