Potential of Proteomics as a Bioanalytic Technique for Quantifying Sleepiness

Currently, there are no simple ways to assess the degree of sleep loss in individual subjects. Proteins constitute greater than 98% of all molecules in the cell. They participate in physiological interactions, explain all of posttranslational modifications that occur in cellular micro-environments and thus are potential candidates for identification of a biomarker of sleepiness. A variety of proteonomic techniques are available which are being used in a current sleep deprivation study of monozygotic and dizygotic twin pairs we are performing.