In this issue

Assembling a crown from used parts A virus is a virus because it is a parasite, totally dependent on its host cell for the manufacture and assembly of its components. Some viruses make it easy for the host to get started on required protein synthesis by presenting themselves as a piece of +ve‐strand (translatable) RNA, ribosome‐ready. Other viruses require some prep work before they can start but they bring along the required enzymes in their virion particle. Coronaviruses are +ve‐strand RNA viruses that depend on their host for assembly and secretion. Vogels et al . report on the subversion and suppression of host functions by the SARS coronavirus. Using a powerful set of proteome tools, including stable mass isotope labeling and Golgi‐related fractionation, they identified 578 host proteins, 116 significantly affected by infection. These were categorized by reported function, except for the large group that had no known function. pp. 64–80Markers for the ups and downs of life? Bipolar disorder, formerly referred to as Manic‐Depression, is a severe psychiatric disease with a multifactorial etiology and a substantial genetic component. Mood stabilizers include lithium, valproate and carbamazepine, which suppress the manic or depressed symptoms. In the normal or euthymic state, patients may appear normal but still have learning disabilities, attention deficit and other side effects. Herberth et al . applied a number of proteomic techniques in a matched case/control study of euthymic and normal individuals. They focused on pathways associated with the disease by looking at multifactorial profiles of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) and serum using LC‐MS and HumanMap technology. Approximately 60 differentially expressed PBMC proteins were involved with stress response and cell death/survival pathways while serum was associated with inflammation. Treating control PBMCs with euthymic patient serum increased cell death frequency, suggesting that markers are waiting to be found. pp. 94–105Focusing on the fine points of serum amyloid P Amyloid P is a component of serum amyloid plaques (SAP). A glycoprotein with 0 to 2 to 8 (say that fast) sialic acids in humans, SAP has been the center of controversy over the degree of microheterogeneity of the human molecule. Basically there are two camps — the mass spec analysis group that maintains SAP is relatively homogeneous, and the high heterogeneity group that bases its “normal” on IEF in polyacrylamide gels, both 1‐D and 2‐D, where 4–8 isoforms are revealed by protein staining. Weiss et al . decided to clear the air of smoke and confusion by using capillary IEF for the analysis, with resolution good down to p I differences of 0.05 when detection is ESI‐MALDI‐MS. The hybrid technique showed SAP to be highly homogeneous among 374 individuals including a number with diseases such as colon cancer, diabetes type 2 and a history of myocardial infarction. pp. 106–113