Towards a functional definition of the mitochondrial human proteome

• The mitochondrial proteome functionally include cytoplasmic proteins.
• Mitochondrial proteomics studies may be mapped on a reference functional network.
• The mitochondrial proteome is a dynamic and chronosteric reality.

The mitochondrial human proteome project (mt-HPP) was initiated by the Italian HPP group as a part of both the chromosome-centric initiative (C-HPP) and the “biology and disease driven” initiative (B/D-HPP). In recent years several reports highlighted how mitochondrial biology and disease are regulated by specific interactions with non-mitochondrial proteins. Thus, it is of great relevance to extend our present view of the mitochondrial proteome not only to those proteins that are encoded by or transported to mitochondria, but also to their interactors that take part in mitochondria functionality. Here, we propose a graphical representation of the functional mitochondrial proteome by retrieving mitochondrial proteins from the NeXtProt database and adding to the network their interactors as annotated in the IntAct database. Notably, the network may represent a reference to map all the proteins that are currently being identified in mitochondrial proteomics studies.

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