Applications of protein mass spectrometry in cell biology.

Advances in mass spectrometry combined with accelerated progress in genome sequencing projects have facilitated the rapid identification of proteins by enzymatic digestion, mass analysis, and sequence database searching. Applications for this technology range from the surveillance of protein expression in cells, tissues, and whole organisms, to the identification of proteins and posttranslational modifications. Here we consider practical aspects of the application of mass spectrometry in cell biology and illustrate these with examples from our own laboratories.