Picking the right tool for the job--Phosphoproteomics of egg activation.

Eggs are the rarest cell in the human body, yet their study is essential for the fields of fertility, reproduction, and fetal health. Guo et al. (Proteomics 2015, 15, 4080-4095) use a "surrogate" animal to discover the phosphoproteomic pathways involved in egg activation. With datasets of several thousand phosphosites on 2500 different proteins, these investigators have defined new pathways, connections to pathways, and priorities in searches for how eggs are activated at fertilization. These results in a sea urchin are now transposable to mammals for testing on a per candidate strategy.