Great mood in proteomics: Beijing and the HUPO Human Brain Proteome Project

More than 1200 attendees came together at the 3(rd) HUPO World Congess in Beijing, October 25-27, 2004. In numerous different sessions the wide range of proteomic areas became visible. The HUPO Brain Proteome Project (HUPO BPP) organized an evening session on October 23, presenting the first results of two pilot studies as well as the newest, very positive international development in this field. The rising importance became even more apparent in the plenary presentation of all HUPO initiatives and the following congress activities.     

HUPO Brain Proteome Project Pilot Studies: bioinformatics at work

The data acquisition phase of initial pilot studies (human and mouse brain samples) of the Human Proteome Organisation (HUPO) Brain Proteome Project (BPP) is now complete and the data generated by the participating laboratories has been submitted to the central Data Collection Center. The BPP Bioinformatics Group met on 8th April 2005 at the European Bioinformatics Institute (Hinxton, UK) to discuss strategies for the reanalysis of the pooled data from all the participating laboratories. A summary of the results of the data reprocessing will be presented at the 4th HUPO World Congress that will be held in August/September 2005.     

4(th) HUPO Brain Proteome Project Workshop in Munich, Germany

More than 70 interested colleagues attended the 4(th) Workshop of HUPO's Brain Proteome Project. The project was presented within nine talks mainly focusing on two running pilot studies as well as on data re-processing. A bioinformatics jamboree in Hinxton, UK, and the 5th Workshop taking place in Dublin next February were announced.     

HUPO BPP Workshop on Mouse Models for Neurodegeneration--Choosing the right models

The HUPO Brain Proteome Project met during the 4th Dutch Endo-Neuro-Psycho Meeting in Doorwerth, The Netherlands, on June 1, 2005, in order to discuss appropriate (mouse) models for neurodegenerative diseases as well as to conceptualise sophisticated proteomics analyses strategies. Here, the topics of the meeting are summarised.     

Translational proteomics in neurodegenerative diseases--16th HUPO BPP workshop September 5, 2011 Geneva, Switzerland

The HUPO Brain Proteome Project (HUPO BPP) held its 16th workshop in Geneva, Switzerland, on September 5, 2011 during the 10th HUPO World Congress. The focus was on launching the Human Brain Proteome Atlas as well as ideas, strategies and methodological aspects in clinical neuroproteomics.     

Proteomics for everyday use: activities of the HUPO Brain Proteome Project during the 5th HUPO World Congress

Long Beach hosted this year's annual congress of the Human Proteome Organisation (HUPO). In addition to the numerous sessions, talks and poster presentations organized by HUPO itself, several events were arranged by the HUPO initiatives. The Brain Proteome Project (HUPO BPP) was very active, initiating three pre-congress workshops: (i) the kick-off meeting of the EU-funded ProDaC consortium (Proteomics Data Collection) that is aiming at the bioinformatics Standardization in the proteomics field; (ii) the workshop "Standardization Issues in Proteomics: Perspectives from Vendors" giving an overview about the lessons learned by proteomics industrial partners; (iii) the 6th HUPO BPP Workshop "New Proteomics Approaches for further HUPO BPP Studies" offering new concepts for brain-related proteomics studies.     

The Human Liver Proteome Project (HLPP) workshop during the 4th HUPO World Congress

The Human Liver Proteome Project (HLPP) is the first initiative of the Human Proteome Organisation (HUPO) to target a human organ/tissue and aims at the establishment of a biological atlas of the liver to advance our understanding of liver functions and to provide the tools to develop new diagnostics and therapeutics for liver diseases. The major achievements of HLPP during its pilot phase (2003-2005) were presented during a one-day workshop held on August 27, 2005, immediately prior to the 4th HUPO World Congress in Munich, Germany. These include (i) the participation of a large number of laboratories worldwide and the initiation of international research collaborations; (ii) the establishment of a management infrastructure and (iii) the development of standard operating procedures and the generation and collection of a first set of expression profile data. A summary of the workshop was subsequently presented by Professor Fuchu He, the Chair of this initiative, during the HUPO 4th Annual World Congress.     

Clinical aspects of neurodegenerative diseases - 15th HUPO BPP Workshop April 8-9, 2011, Bochum, Germany

The HUPO Brain Proteome Project (HUPO BPP) held its 15th workshop in Bochum, Germany, from April 8th to 9th, 2011 directly after the Proteomic Forum 2011 in Berlin. Like on every spring workshop, the focus was more on clinical aspects, so that especially clinicians participated in this workshop.     

Bridging Proteomics and Medical Science - the 5th HUPO Brain Proteome Workshop in Dublin, Ireland

More than 70 interested colleagues attended the 5th Workshop of the HUPO Brain Proteome Project (HUPO BPP) at the UCD Conway Institute, Dublin, Ireland. An overview of the outcome of the pilot study was presented and the new subprojects "Clinical Neuroproteomics of Human Body Fluids" as well as "Cerebellum 2D-mapping" were announced. In addition the election of the HUPO BPP committees and the future directions of this project were discussed and decided. The meeting was enhanced by several talks highlighting the application of proteomics in biomedical research.     

Early Diagnosis of Neurodegenerative Diseases – The Long Awaited Holy Grail and Bottleneck of Modern Brain Research – 19th HUPO BPP Workshop

The HUPO Brain Proteome Project (HUPO BPP) held its 19th workshop in Dortmund, Germany, from May 22 to 24, 2013. The focus of the spring workshop was on strategies and developments concerning early diagnosis of neurodegenerative diseases     

HUPO 2011: The new Cardiovascular Initiative - integrating proteomics and cardiovascular biology in health and disease

A newly reorganized HUPO Cardiovascular Initiative was announced at the HUPO 2011 Cardiovascular Initiative Workshop at Geneva. The new initiative is now part of the biology- and disease-driven component of the HUPO Human Proteome Project (B/D-HPP). Here we report the recent achievements and future directions of the initiative, and offer a perspective on the present challenges of cardiovascular proteomics and its integration with the cardiovascular biology community at large.     

High Performance Proteomics: 7th HUPO Brain Proteome Project Workshop March 7-9, 2007 Wellcome Trust Conference Centre, Hinxton, UK

The Wellcome Trust Conference Centre at Hinxton, UK, was the meeting place of the 7th HUPO Brain Proteome Project Workshop entitled "High Performance Proteomics". It started on Wednesday, March 7, 2007 with a steering committee meeting followed by a two days series of talks dealing with the standardization and handling of tissues, body fluids as well as of proteomics data. The presentation and accompanying vivid discussions created a picture of actual strategies and standards in recent proteomics.     

Further steps towards data standardisation: the Proteomic Standards Initiative HUPO 3(rd) annual congress, Beijing 25-27(th) October, 2004

The increasing volume of proteomics data currently being generated by increasingly high-throughput methodologies has led to an increasing need for methods by which such data can be accurately described, stored and exchanged between experimental researchers and data repositories. Work by the Proteomics Standards Initiative of the Human Proteome Organisation has laid the foundation for the development of standards by which experimental design can be described and data exchange facilitated. The progress of these efforts, and the direct benefits already accruing from them, were described at a plenary session of the 3(rd) Annual HUPO congress. Parallel sessions allowed the three work groups to present their progress to interested parties and to collect feedback from groups already implementing the available formats.     

The human brain mannose 6-phosphate glycoproteome: a complex mixture composed of multiple isoforms of many soluble lysosomal proteins

The lysosome is a membrane delimited cytoplasmic organelle that contains at least 50 hydrolytic enzymes and associated cofactors. The biomedical importance of these enzymes is highlighted by the many lysosomal storage disorders that are associated with mutations in genes encoding lysosomal proteins, and there is also evidence that lysosomal activities may be involved in more widespread human diseases. The aim of this study was to characterize the human brain lysosomal proteome with the goal of establishing a reference map to investigate human diseases of unknown etiology and to gain insights into the cellular function of the lysosome. Proteins containing mannose 6-phosphate (Man6-P), a carbohydrate modification used for targeting resident soluble lysosomal proteins to the lysosome, were affinity-purified using immobilized Man6-P receptor. Fractionation by two-dimensional electrophoresis resolved a complex mixture comprising approximately 800 spots. Constituent proteins in each spot were identified using a combination of matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization-time of flight mass spectrometry (both peptide mass fingerprinting and tandem mass spectrometry) [corrected] on in-gel tryptic digests and N-terminal sequencing. In a complementary analysis, we also analyzed a tryptic digest of the unfractionated mixture by liquid chromatography MS/MS. In total, 61 different proteins were identified. Seven were likely contaminants associated with true Man6-P glycoproteins. Forty-one were known lysosomal proteins of which 11 have not previously been reported to contain Man6-P. An additional nine proteins were either uncharacterized or proteins not previously reported to have lysosomal function. We found that the human brain Man6-P-containing lysosomal proteome is highly complex and contains more proteins with a much greater number of individual isoforms than found in previous studies of Man6-P glycoproteomes.     

Key players in neurodegenerative disorders in focus—New insights into the proteomic profile of Alzheimer's disease,schizophrenia, ALS,and multiple sclerosis—24th HUPO BPP Workshop

The HUPO Brain Proteome Project (HUPO BPP) held its 24th workshop in Vancouver, Canada, September 29, 2015. The focus of the autumn workshop was on new insights into the proteomic profile of Alzheimer's disease, schizophrenia, ALS and multiple sclerosis.     

Entering the implementation era: a report on the HUPO-PSI Fall workshop 25-27 September 2006, Washington DC, USA

Since its conception in April 2002, the Human Proteome Organisation Proteomics Standards Initiative has contributed to the development of community standards for proteomics in a collaborative and very dynamic manner, resulting in the publication and increasing adoption of a number of interchange formats and controlled vocabularies. Repositories supporting these formats are being established or are already operational. In parallel with this, minimum reporting requirement have been developed and are now maturing to the point where they have been submitted for journal publication after prolonged exposure to community-input via the PSI website.     

Proteomics and Beyond: a report on the 3rd Annual Spring Workshop of the HUPO-PSI 21-23 April 2006, San Francisco, CA, USA

The theme of the third annual Spring workshop of the HUPO-PSI was "proteomics and beyond" and its underlying goal was to reach beyond the boundaries of the proteomics community to interact with groups working on the similar issues of developing interchange standards and minimal reporting requirements. Significant developments in many of the HUPO-PSI XML interchange formats, minimal reporting requirements and accompanying controlled vocabularies were reported, with many of these now feeding into the broader efforts of the Functional Genomics Experiment (FuGE) data model and Functional Genomics Ontology (FuGO) ontologies.     

Human colostrum: identification of minor proteins in the aqueous phase by proteomics

Human colostrum is an important source of protective, nutritional and developmental factors for the newborn. We have investigated the low abundance proteins in the aqueous phase of human colostrum, after depletion of the major proteins secretory IgA, lactoferrin, alpha-lactalbumin and HSA by immunoabsorption, using 2-D LC and gel-based proteomic methods. One hundred and fifty-one proteins were identified, 83 of which have not been previously reported in human colostrum, or milk. This is the first comprehensive proteomic analysis of human colostrum produced during the first 48 h of lactation.     

Iodine levels in different regions of the human brain

BackgroundIodine is a key component of the thyroid hormones thyroxine (T4) and triiodothyronine (T3), which are crucial for proper growth and development of the human body. In particular, a great body of literature has been published on the link between thyroid hormones and brain development and functioning. However, there is a lack of knowledge on the iodine levels in the human brain. The aim of this work was to determine the brain iodine levels and to contribute to the establishment of “reference” levels for iodine in the different anatomical and functional regions of normal (i.e., subjects without neurological or psychiatric diseases) human brain.MethodsThe iodine levels were determined in 14 brain regions of 52 dead subjects without evidence of neurological or psychiatric disease (n = 728 samples). Iodine was extracted from brain samples using a standard procedure and determined by inductively coupled plasma – mass spectrometry (ICP-MS).ResultsFour subjects presented abnormally high brain iodine levels (26.0 ± 14.2 μg/g) and were excluded from the overall data analysis. The average brain iodine levels for the remaining 48 subjects was 0.14 ± 0.13 μg/g dry weight. Iodine showed very heterogeneous distribution across the different brain regions, with the frontal cortex, caudate nucleus and putamen showing the highest levels. Interestingly, these brain regions are closely related to cognitive function. Iodine levels also showed a tendency to increase with age. The high levels observed in four subjects seemed to be related to previous exposure to iodine-based contrast agents widely used in radiology and computed tomography exams.ConclusionsThis paper provides important data on iodine levels at different brain regions in “normal” people, which can be used to interpret eventual imbalances in subjects with mental disorders and neurodegenerative diseases.