Insights into the Regular Patterns of Protein Abundance Regulation and Distribution

Protein is one of the fundamental building blocks of life, and its amount in one cell is closely related to biological function. Therefore, protein abundance is regulated strictly at multiple levels of gene expression. The determinants of protein abundance include its corresponding mRNA abundance, the rate of protein synthesis and degradation, so the final cellular protein abundance is determined by the balance of these three factors. Benefitting from the rapid advancement of quantitative proteomics and the outputting of large-scale protein abundance data, we can devote to uncovering the relationship between protein abundance and its intrinsic characteristics (such as evolutionary characteristics, structure characteristics and functional categories), which is of great significance for the deep understanding of the basic composition principle of life systems. Here we summarize the recent research advances of protein abundance regulation, and the regular patterns of the relationship between protein abundance and its intrinsic characteristics. In addition, we also discuss the biological significance underlying them.