“This study has applied recent advances in proteomic techniques to gain a deeper insight into the Arabidopsis mitochondrial proteome. This has revealed novel biochemical pathways and processes, an abundance of unknown proteins and confirmed the composition of many well defined components and complexes.”

Our paper represents the first large-scale analysis of the protein composition of plant mitochondria utilizing proteomics. This dataset has revealed that although the mitochondrial proteome of Arabidopsis shares considerable homology to yeast and mammals with regard to core processes, there appears to be a distinct subset of specialized functions that occur in plants. This study also examined a variety of widely utilized subcellular prediction programs and their performance on the experimentally derived mitochondrial protein set. This comparison found that generally these programs tend to "over predict" mitochondrial localization in Arabidopsis and that each program predicts a large exclusive subset. Overall, these findings are of ongoing interest to both plant and animal researchers as the mitochondrion represents a functional link between these two disparate lineages.

Our knowledge of what constitutes a mitochondrion has previously been limited by our inability to easily identify its protein constituents. This study has applied recent advances in proteomic techniques to gain a deeper insight into the Arabidopsis mitochondrial proteome. This has revealed novel biochemical pathways and processes, an abundance of unknown proteins, and confirmed the composition of many well-defined components and complexes. These findings are an important step in the further characterization and functional elucidation of plant mitochondria.

Mitochondria are subcellular compartments that produce cellular energy through respiration. Its fundamental role in energy production masks its many other diverse functions within the cell. This work uses recent technical advances to identify many of the functional constituents or proteins that comprise this compartment. This has enabled us to begin to uncover novel mitochondrial functions as well as further clarifying its well-characterized roles such as energy production.

The Plant Molecular Biology Group at UWA has an extensive research program that focuses on plant mitochondria. My involvement stems from my interest in plant research and its applications in emerging "omic" technologies, such as proteomics. The next few years are likely to see the integration of these global technologies into linked information networks which will allow deeper insights into current biological systems. Our analysis of the Arabidopsis mitochondrial proteome, for example, has led to the development of a publicly accessible database, which houses the ongoing proteomics data produced through this work.