Cell-free protein synthesis for proteomics.

The use of cell-free expression systems as an alternative to cell-based methods for protein production is greatly facilitating studies of protein functions. Recent improvements to cell-free systems, and the development of cell-free protein display and microarray technologies, have led to cell-free protein synthesis becoming a powerful tool for large-scale analysis of proteins. This paper reviews the most commonly used cell-free systems and their applications in proteomics.