Proteomics in postgenomic neuroscience: the end of the beginning.

Proteomics is complementary to genomic approaches anchored in DNA and RNA. Global characterization of proteins is providing new insights into general biological structures as well as synapses, receptor complexes and other neuronal and glial features. Current challenges for proteomics of the nervous system include problems relating to sample preparation, brain complexity, limited databases and informatics tools. The combination of proteomics with other global functional genomic approaches at the levels of genome and transcriptome, together with network biology, will provide important bridges between genes, physiology and pathology.