As advances in biotechnology and molecular biology rapidly expand in research settings, it is vital that we continue to prepare high school students to enter and thrive in those modern laboratories. This multistep, inquiry-based lab describes highly adaptable methods to teach students not only current molecular techniques and technologies, but also about proteomics and microorganisms. Students participate in protein extraction, gel electrophoresis, mass spectrometry, and data analysis to identify proteins present in microorganisms.

Proteomics is an emerging area of systems biology that allows simultaneous study of thousands of proteins expressed in cells, tissues, or whole organisms. We have developed this activity to enable high school or college students to explore proteomic databases using mass spectrometry data files generated from yeast proteins in a college laboratory course. Students upload files of “unknown” proteins from our public website, enter them into a proteomics search engine (Mascot), identify the proteins, and use additional proteomics websites to learn about their functions and three-dimensional structures. This activity is suitable for use in units exploring protein structure and function, metabolism, or bioinformatics.