Organelle proteomics experimental designs and analysis

In biology, localisation is function: knowledge of the localisation of proteins is of paramount importance to assess and study their function. This supports the need for reliable protein subcellular localisation assignment. Concomitant with recent technological advances in organelle proteomics, there is a requirement for more rigorous experimental and analysis design planning and description. In this review, we present an overview of current experimental designs in qualitative and quantitative organelle proteomics as well as associated data analysis. We also consider the major benefits associated with careful description and dissemination of the experiment and analysis designs, namely (i) comparison and optimisation of experimental designs and analysis pipelines, (ii) data validation, (iii) reproducible research, (iv) efficient repository submission and retrieval and (v) meta analysis. Formalisation of experimental design and analysis work flows is of direct benefit for the organelle proteomics researchers and will result in providing organelle localisation data of highest quality for the wider research community.