A database of naturally occurring human urinary peptides and proteins for use in clinical applications

SUMMARY Owing to its availability, ease of collection and correlation with (patho-) physiology, urine isan attractive source for clinical proteomics. However, the lack of comparable datasets fromlarge cohorts has greatly hindered development in this field. Here we report theestablishment of a high resolution proteome database of naturally occurring human urinarypeptides and proteins - ranging from 800–17,000 Da - from over 3,600 individual samplesusing capillary electrophoresis coupled to mass spectrometry, yielding an average of 1,500peptides per sample. All processed data were deposited in an SQL database, currentlycontaining 5,010 relevant unique urinary peptides that serve as classifiers for diagnosisand monitoring of diseases, including kidney and vascular diseases. Of these, 352 havebeen sequenced to date. To demonstrate the applicability of this database, two examplesof disease diagnosis were provided: For renal damage diagnosis, patients with a specificrenal disease were identified with high specificity and sensitivity in a blinded cohort of 131individuals. We further show definition of biomarkers specific for immunosuppression andcomplications after transplantation (Kaposi‘s sarcoma). Due to its high information content,this database will be a powerful tool for the validation of biomarkers for both renal and non-renal diseases.NaturePrecedings:hdl:10101/npre.2007.1219.1:Posted11Oct2007