Imop

From Mascp

iMOP

Executive summary

The model organism community is growing steadily and the number of comprehensive model organism proteome data being generated is continuously increasing. To standardize efforts and to make optimum use of the proteomics data acquired in model organisms, a new HUPO initiative in model organism proteomes (iMOP) is proposed. iMOP will stimulate the scientific exchange within this community, and HUPO best practices and standards can be brought to the model organism researchers. Their needs towards the central databases will be better represented, catalyzing the integration of proteomics and organism-specific databases.

Vision and mission

Model organism proteomes

Model organisms have been used for decades to study embryogenesis, development and other fundamental biological processes. They are easy to grow in the laboratory and have rather short generation times. The conservation of disease pathways between model organisms and human allows model organisms to be used to study disease pathogenesis and to develop drugs.

Historically, research on model organisms depended largely on genetic approaches. More recently, however, large scale approaches such as genomics and proteomics have become an essential part of model organism research. Unfortunately, the community of model organism researchers is highly fragmented, first because they work on many different model organism species, and second because of their wide distribution around the world. Often, groups that start proteomic projects in model organisms have a previous expertise in genomics but are new in the field of proteomics. Moreover, many of these groups face similar technical challenges in their efforts to characterize the proteome of their favorite model organism: small size, difficulties in obtaining pure cell populations, integration of proteomics data into already well-established organism-centered databases.

In order to better address these challenges, we propose to establish a new HUPO initiative on model organism proteomes (iMOP) to create a global network of experimental and bioinformatics groups interested in model organism proteomes. The initiative will ensure that the same principles, protocols, and standards used in all current HUPO initiatives are also applied in the future to all model organisms. The iMOP initiative will not focus on a single species but rather will bring together model organism proteomicists to reach the critical mass necessary to get influence and impact within the scientific community.