Zeitschrift für Proteomik und Bioinformatik
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High Altitude Illness and Adaptation: Hints from Proteomics

Kumari Smita, MA Qadar Pasha and SK Jain

Proteomics has been successfully applied to many biomedical fields. Among these, high altitude (HA) proteomics has attracted researchers in past few years. Adaptation to hypobaric hypoxia (HH) is necessary for humans under several environmental, physiological and pathological situations. High altitude environmental challenges are major concern for sojourners, soldiers and mountaineers not only during their initial days of induction to the hypoxic environment but during long term residency. Hypoxia triggers oxidative stress and damage to proteins, lipids and DNA. This condition can occur due to environmental factors (altitude), toxicity or diseases. Sometimes body overcome the stress caused by hypoxia through unique process of self recovery and adaptation. Identifying the molecular variables playing key roles in this process are of prime importance in understanding the mechanisms for counteracting the negative effects oxygen deprivation that may lead to several diseases. Proteins play vital role in these physiological conditions and can be considered as molecular signature for altitude adaptation. Several proteins have been identified and categorised on the basis of their role in hypoxia and HA adaptation. Recent advances in proteomics have opened new vistas to understand the functional aspect of differential expression of proteins. Linking existing proteins together, finding newer proteins and their functional analysis can provide better understanding of the physiological mechanism underlying adaptation to hypoxia. New information coming from the analysis of the novel proteins offers opportunity to further analyse the cellular responses to HH.