Human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) infects immune cells including CD4⁺ T cells. Previous studies demonstrated that host proteins in immune cells regulate HIV-1 replication. However, it has not yet been clarified how virion-packaged host proteins affect viral replication. Thus, the identification of virion-packaged host proteins and the elucidation of their role in HIV-1 replication are among the important approaches to clarifying further the HIV-1 replication process. Furthermore, because viral proteins utilize intracellular post-translational modification enzymes to acquire protein diversity, the identification and functional analysis of post-translational modifications in viral proteins are also important for elucidating the mechanism of HIV-1 replication. In this review, among the novel HIV-1 replication mechanisms that we have discovered by proteome analysis using infectious HIV-1 particles, we present the inhibition of HIV-1 replication by intravirion glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase and the importance of post-translational modification on viral capsid protein.

Metabolomics, which is an omics technology and is also called metabolome analysis, is a technique for comprehensively analyzing the low-molecular-weight metabolites found in the body. Due to the development of metabolomic methods involving analytical instruments, such as gas chromatography/mass spectrometry, liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry, and capillary electrophoresis/mass spectrometry, it has become possible to analyze various kinds of metabolites, such as hydrophilic and hydrophobic metabolites, and to detect metabolites at lower concentrations. With recent advances in mass spectrometry technology, metabolomic research has come to be widely used in various research fields, such as those relating to food, plants, microorganisms, and medicine. In the medical research field, metabolomics has often been used for biomarker research, and many articles on the topic have been published worldwide. However, various factors that can affect the results of analyses of blood metabolites during metabolomic biomarker research have been reported. These factors can affect the pre-analytical, analytical, or post-analytical phase. Identifying such factors is very important for ensuring the appropriate practical application of the results of metabolomic biomarker research. This review outlines current knowledge about such factors.

According to the resent progress on the mass spectrometric technologies and the other novel approaches for quantitative protein analysis, the large-scale proteome researches with disease related human specimens have increased. In this report, affinity proteomics are focused on, which could analyze thousands of proteins in blood at the same time. As the technical feature, thousands of artificial DNA aptamers are prepared, then bound to proteins in the blood. The signals on the microarray of each aptamer reflects each target protein amounts. In addition to the technical points, the novel trends and new findings found in more than 200 papers, which might contribute to the future of the proteome research field and social implementation, are also described as our review report.