Illuminating the human genome

The identification and analysis of novel genes and their encoded protein products remains a vigorous area of research in biology today. Worldwide genomic and cDNA sequencing projects are now identifying new molecules every day and the need for methodologies to functionally characterise these proteins has never been greater. The distinct compartmental arrangement of eukaryotic cells helps define the processes which occur within or in proximity to these membranes, and as such provides one means of inferring protein function. We describe here some of the methods recently reported in the literature, which use the subcellular localisation of proteins as a first step towards their further characterisation.

Authors and Affiliations

1. Department of Cell Biology and Biophysics, EMBL Heidelberg, Meyerhofstrasse 1, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany

   Jeremy C. Simpson, Veronika E. Neubrand & Rainer Pepperkok

2. Molecular Genome Analysis, German Cancer Research Center, Im Neuenheimer Feld 280/506, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany

   Stefan Wiemann

Electronic Publication

Reprints and permissions