Classification of information about proteins

Abstract

The use of advanced high throughput technology applied to proteomics results in the production of large volumes of information rich data. This data requires considerable knowledge management to allow biologists and bioinformaticians to access and understand the information in the context of their experiments. As the volume of data increases, the results from these high throughput experiments will provide the foundations for advancing proteome biology. In this chapter, we consider the challenges of information integration in proteomics from the perspective of researchers using information technology as an integral part of their discovery process. We firstly describe the information about proteins that is collected from high throughput experimentation and how this is managed. We then describe how protein ontologies can be used to classify this information. Finally we discuss some of the uses of protein classification systems and the biological challenges in proteomics which they help to resolve. © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2009. All rights reserved.