The important contribution of quantitative proteomics for deciphering the gene-regulatory code fo the human genome

The human genome contains roughly 25,000 protein-coding genes. However, in a given cell-type a maximum of only 10,000 of these genes are expressed at a significant level. In order to understand this, scientists have to know the gene regulatory code, which consists of the DNA sequence-dependent binding specificities of a prominent class of DNA-binding proteins, the so called transcription factors (TFs), which are able to read the regulatory information. Max-Planck researchers have devised a fast and sensitive technology bearing the potential for genome-wide studies of the gene regulatory code.