Extracting biological meaning from global proteomic data on circulating-blood platelets: Effects of diabetes and storage time

Transfusion of platelets into patients suffering from trauma and a variety of disease is a common medical practice that involves millions of units per year. Partial activation of platelets can result in the release of bioactive proteins and lipid mediators that increase the risk of adverse post-transfusion effects. Type-2 diabetes and storage are two factors known to cause partial activation of platelets. A global proteomic study was undertaken to investigate these effects. In this paper we discuss the methods used to interpret these data in terms of biological processes affected by diabetes and storage. The main emphasis is on the processing of proteomic data for gene ontology enrichment analysis by techniques originally designed for microarray data.