Protein function microarrays for customised systems-oriented proteome analysis.

Protein microarrays have many potential applications in the systematic, quantitative analysis of protein function. However, simple, reproducible, and robust methods for array fabrication that are compatible with the study of large, custom collections of potentially unrelated proteins are required. Here, we discuss different routes to array fabrication and describe in detail one approach in which the purification and immobilisation procedures are combined into a single step, significantly simplifying the array fabrication process. We illustrate this approach by reference to the creation of an array of human protein kinases and discuss methods for assay and data analysis on such arrays.