Mitochondria are organelles that are essential for cell life and death. A huge range of pathologies, including neurodegenerative diseases, cancer, diabetes and aging, have been reported to be associated with mitochondrial dysfunction. Therefore, identification of mitochondrial proteins that are differentially expressed in these pathologies will help to further our understanding of these diseases. In recent years, great achievements have been made in mammalian mitochondrial proteomics. Here we provide an overview of the current state of knowledge with respect to the whole mitochondrial proteome, the mitochondrial subproteome, mitochondrial complexes and mitochondrial post-translational modifications. Applications of comparative mitochondrial proteomics to various pathologies that have provided clues for understanding the relationship between mitochondrial dysfunction and pathogenesis are described. We conclude that mitochondrial proteomics can be used not only to map all the components of mitochondria, but can also provide information for discovering therapeutic targets for mitochondria-related diseases.