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Abstract

Mass Spectrometry of proteins and biologically relevant molecules is an area in which a growing interest in being expressed. However, the field is still in its infancy with respect to the compilation of proteomes of both sub-cellular fractions and whole cells. A two step approach has been used to evaluate the suitability of the mass spectrometry technique on the purple non-sulphur bacteria, Rhodopsuedomonas palustris. I first analyzed the mass spectrometry of isolated chromatophores, vesicles formed by invaginations of the bacterial inner membrane, to evaluate our approach. I searched for proteins expected to be located in these structures, identified proteins that may be associated with the chromatophores and searched for potentially novel photosynthetically related hypothetical proteins. Subsequently, I investigated the complete proteome of the bacteria under a number of different environmental conditions and used a mutant strain of this bacterium. From the preliminary results, I created a new approach for display of the proteomics data obtained by my collaborators. This allows for the rapid examination of qualitative and quantitative aspects of proteins by colour-coded display of grouped peptides.