PNNL

Abstract

Current methods in proteomics are dependent on the availability of sequenced genomes to identify proteins. However, genomic sequences are not always available for bacteria or microbial communities, even with high throughput sequencing technology becoming more readily available. Nevertheless, the homology that exists between related bacteria makes possible the extraction of meaningful biological information from an organism’s, or community’s proteome using the genomic sequence of a near neighbor. Here, a cross-organism search strategy was used to look at the amount of proteomics information obtainable with relative genetic distance from a near neighbor organism and to identify proteins in the proteome of minimally characterized environmental isolates. We conclude that closely related organisms with sequenced genomes, can be used to characterize proteomes of organisms with unsequenced genomes. In general, a cross-organism search strategy demonstrates the first step to use of sequences genomes to evaluate the proteomes of environmental bacteria and microbial communities that have no sequenced genome