Kurt Boonen

Peptidomics of the Mouse: Unravelling the Role of Bioactive Peptides in Intercellular Signalling Kurt Boonen

Peptidomics is a recent technology that is based on mass spectrometry. It aims to identify all peptides present in a cell, tissue or organism at a certain time. Peptidomics can be used for the discovery of new bioactive peptides (of which neuropeptides are a special class). Proteolysis has to be strictly controlled if peptidomics is used for this purpose. In this book, the aspects that contribute to a succesfull peptidomics experiment are described in detail. The integrated appraoch of sample handling, separation and mass spectrometric techniques and bioinformatics are discussed. The last part introduces a new perspective on how peptides are used for intercellular signalling. Cells use the peptidome, rather than a single peptide species, to regulate their physiology. Peptidomics, together with systems biology, will be able to create accurate models of intercellular signalling in the future.