Proteomic Analysis of Artemisia annua

There is growing interest to apply proteomics to other organisms than just the biomedically relevant and important species such as human, mouse or rat. However, one of the main hurdles for successful application of proteomics to the organism of interest is still the availability of a well annotated and curated (genomic) database that can be used to search the (mainly MS-based) proteomic data for protein identification. Thus, the field of proteogenomics is increasingly becoming important with the aim to support the annotation of genomic sequence data by exploiting the information that is obtained through proteomics from the identification and characterization of the actual gene products/expression. Here, we have studied the organism Artemisia annua, which is a Chinese medicinal plant endemic to northern parts of China. A. annua is crucial to world health programs as it is currently the sole source for biosynthetically produced artemisinin, the anitmalarial pro-drug compound that has been the last line of defence against malaria for decades.