Ignjatovic, VeraLai, CeraSummerhayes, RobynMathesius, UlrikeTawfilis, SherifPerugini, Matthew A.Monagle, Paul2015-11-302015-11-301932-6203http://hdl.handle.net/1885/16909The incidence of major diseases such as cardiovascular disease, thrombosis and cancer increases with age and is the major cause of mortality world-wide, with neonates and children somehow protected from such diseases of ageing. We hypothesized that there are major developmental differences in plasma proteins and that these contribute to age-related changes in the incidence of major diseases. We evaluated the human plasma proteome in healthy neonates, children and adults using the 2D-DIGE approach. We demonstrate significant changes in number and abundance of up to 100 protein spots that have marked differences in during the transition of the plasma proteome from neonate and child through to adult. These proteins are known to be involved in numerous physiological processes such as iron transport and homeostasis, immune response, haemostasis and apoptosis, amongst others. Importantly, we determined that the proteins that are differentially expressed with age are not the same proteins that are differentially expressed with gender and that the degree of phosphorylation of plasma proteins also changes with age. Given the multi-functionality of these proteins in human physiology, understanding the differences in the plasma proteome in neonates and children compared to adults will make a major contribution to our understanding of developmental biology in humans.GE Healthcare Life Sciences Australia funded Sherif Tawfilis' time in the initial laboratory aspects of this project, some aspects of data analysis and preparation of the manuscript. This study was funded by internal Haematology Research Team funds. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.© 2011 Ignjatovic et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.adolescentadultage factorsagingblood proteinschildchild, preschoolelectrophoresis, gel, two-dimensionalfemalehumansinfantinfant, newbornmalephosphoproteinsproteomevalidation studies as topic2011-02-1810.1371/journal.pone.00172132015-12-10