Mathias Uhlén, professor at KTH, leading the effort to identify the building blocks of our body uses to build various organs and tissues. Most are basic proteins that are found everywhere in the body.
Now released the map of the proteins our bodies use to build various organs.
– It will change how you look at human biology, says project manager Mathias Uhlén at KTH.
The brown-colored cells of the brain are involved in the immune system and contains protein AIF1.
ACE protein include in lung endothelial cells, which form the boundary layer to the blood. ACE plays an important role in regulating blood pressure.
In the islets of Langerhans in the pancreas are the GAD2 protein (brown cells). The body often form antibodies against the GAD2 of insulin-dependent diabetes.
What is it that makes a kidney for a kidney ? Or a living for a living? Billion Human Protein Atlas project, led by the Royal Institute of Technology professor Mathias Uhlén, has for eleven years been looking for the answer. Now researchers world’s first construction drawing of a normal, healthy person. Or put another way; a picture atlas that shows which of the body’s 20,000 proteins used to build all the organs and tissues.
– For the first time, it to say how many building blocks that are in complex organs like the liver and kidney, but also what makes them different, says Mathias Uhlén.
Surprisingly, many are the same, he says. We humans seem to have a basmaskineri of proteins that act in all cells. They make sure that the cell gets energy, replicating the genome, forming the right proteins. In round figures it’s about around 10,000 proteins that appear anywhere in the body.
– The biggest news is that it is so get proteins that characterize a body. In the kidney, only 68 proteins, of which there are more than in other parts of the body and which the kidney is doing what it does. But none of the proteins is unique.
The realization is in conflict with the traditional view that bodies are composed of tissue-specific proteins; kidney renal proteins, the liver of liver proteins and so on.
– We show that it is not so. I think this will change the way you look at human biology, he said.
Are there any proteins at all unique to a specific organ?
– Yes, but they are only a handful . The insulin in the pancreas belong there, like the prostate-specific protein PSA and troponin in the heart.
The result may Mathias Uhlén resemble human construction with design of a car – whether it’s about a Ferrari or Volkswagen as the components of cars are not unique. The difference is in how they are put together.
How the design looks seen when going in to the database that is freely available online . The 13 million microscopy images reveal what proteins are active in 32 organs and tissues in the human body. There are also lists of what proteins are basic proteins and which ones are elevated compared to other parts of the body. Even the 620 proteins that all the world drug targeting is specified.
The data has been entered in stages since 2005. Already in Today, the database has 60,000 to 70,000 unique users per month. Daily published an average of two scientific papers of research groups around the world who used the reagents that researchers have developed to make the proteins visible.
How is the Atlas of the healthy person should be used?
– We hope it will serve as a basis for all further research in human biology and disease. If one is to understand a disease, you need to first understand the healthy, normal state.
Within four years, also a map of the proteins that are active in diseased tissues and organs to be completed. The comparison between healthy and diseased tissue can provide the answer to what happens when we get sick. This knowledge can in turn be the key to how the diseases to be treated.
Portions of such information already exists in another part of the atlas and is used to study cancer.
– I’d be disappointed if not virtually all drug development in the future use of our atlas in any way, says Mathias Uhlén.
To the last working IT researchers in the project intensively to get into the final data sets in the system. During the day held a press conference where the first map of where in the body the healthy human proteins are presented to the world.
What’s it like?
– It feels great, I must say.
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