Diz Angel P, Truebano Manuela, Skibinski David O F
Institute of Life Sciences, School of Medicine, Swansea University, Swansea, UK.
Electrophoresis. 2009 Sep;30(17):2967-2975. doi: 10.1002/elps.200900210.
Pooling of samples in proteomics experiments might help overcome resource constraints when many individuals are analysed. The measured biological variation should be reduced giving increased power to detect treatment differences. Pooling has been advocated in microarray work but there are few tests of its potential in proteomics. In this study, we examine three issues on which the success of the pooling approach might hinge and provide evidence that: (i) the protein expression in a pool matches the mean expression of the individuals making up the pool for the majority of proteins, although for some proteins the pool expression is different; (ii) the biological variance between pools is reduced compared with that between individuals, as predicted in theory, but this reduction is not as large as expected. A practical consequence of this is that power could be reduced; (iii) proteins detectable in individual samples are usually but not always visible when samples are pooled. We conclude that pooling of samples in proteomics work is a valid and potentially valuable procedure but consideration should be given to these issues in experimental design.
在蛋白质组学实验中，当分析多个个体时，样本合并可能有助于克服资源限制。测量到的生物学变异应会减少，从而增强检测治疗差异的能力。样本合并在微阵列研究中已得到提倡，但在蛋白质组学中对其潜力的测试却很少。在本研究中，我们考察了样本合并方法成功与否可能取决于的三个问题，并提供证据表明：（i）对于大多数蛋白质而言，合并样本中的蛋白质表达与构成该合并样本的各个个体的平均表达相匹配，不过对于某些蛋白质，合并样本的表达有所不同；（ii）正如理论预测的那样，合并样本之间的生物学变异相较于个体之间的有所减少，但这种减少没有预期的那么大。由此产生的一个实际后果是检测能力可能会降低；（iii）在个体样本中可检测到的蛋白质，在样本合并时通常（但并非总是）也可见。我们得出结论，蛋白质组学研究中的样本合并是一个有效的且可能有价值的程序，但在实验设计中应考虑到这些问题。
