Cancer is one of the leading causes of death, and there is great interest in understanding the underlying molecular mechanisms involved in the pathogenesis and progression of individual tumors. We used systems-level approaches to analyze the genome-wide transcriptome of the protein-coding genes of 17 major cancer types with respect to clinical outcome. A general pattern emerged: Shorter patient survival was associated with up-regulation of genes involved in cell growth and with down-regulation of genes involved in cellular differentiation. Using genome-scale metabolic models, we show that cancer patients have widespread metabolic heterogeneity, highlighting the need for precise and personalized medicine for cancer treatment. All data are presented in an interactive open-access database (www.proteinatlas.org/pathology) to allow genome-wide exploration of the impact of individual proteins on clinical outcomes.

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The recent advent of methods for high-throughput single-cell molecular profiling has catalyzed a growing sense in the scientific community that the time is ripe to complete the 150-year-old effort to identify all cell types in the human body. The Human Cell Atlas Project is an international collaborative effort that aims to define all human cell types in terms of distinctive molecular profiles (such as gene expression profiles) and to connect this information with classical cellular descriptions (such as location and morphology). An open comprehensive reference map of the molecular state of cells in healthy human tissues would propel the systematic study of physiological states, developmental trajectories, regulatory circuitry and interactions of cells, and also provide a framework for understanding cellular dysregulation in human disease. Here we describe the idea, its potential utility, early proofs-of-concept, and some design considerations for the Human Cell Atlas, including a commitment to open data, code, and community.

Several liver disorders result from perturbations in the metabolism of hepatocytes, and their underlying mechanisms can be outlined through the use of genome-scale metabolic models (GEMs). Here we reconstruct a consensus GEM for hepatocytes, which we call iHepatocytes2322, that extends previous models by including an extensive description of lipid metabolism. We build iHepatocytes2322 using Human Metabolic Reaction 2.0 database and proteomics data in Human Protein Atlas, which experimentally validates the incorporated reactions. The reconstruction process enables improved annotation of the proteomics data using the network centric view of iHepatocytes2322. We then use iHepatocytes2322 to analyse transcriptomics data obtained from patients with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. We show that blood concentrations of chondroitin and heparan sulphates are suitable for diagnosing non-alcoholic steatohepatitis and for the staging of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. Furthermore, we observe serine deficiency in patients with NASH and identify PSPH, SHMT1 and BCAT1 as potential therapeutic targets for the treatment of non-alcoholic steatohepatitis.

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Genome-scale metabolic models (GEMs) have proven useful as scaffolds for the integration of omics data for understanding the genotype-phenotype relationship in a mechanistic manner. Here, we evaluated the presence/absence of proteins encoded by 15,841 genes in 27 hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients using immunohistochemistry. We used this information to reconstruct personalized GEMs for six HCC patients based on the proteomics data, HMR 2.0, and a task-driven model reconstruction algorithm (tINIT). The personalized GEMs were employed to identify anticancer drugs using the concept of antimetabolites; i.e., drugs that are structural analogs to metabolites. The toxicity of each antimetabolite was predicted by assessing the in silico functionality of 83 healthy cell type-specific GEMs, which were also reconstructed with the tINIT algorithm. We predicted 101 antimetabolites that could be effective in preventing tumor growth in all HCC patients, and 46 antimetabolites which were specific to individual patients. Twenty-two of the 101 predicted antimetabolites have already been used in different cancer treatment strategies, while the remaining antimetabolites represent new potential drugs. Finally, one of the identified targets was validated experimentally, and it was confirmed to attenuate growth of the HepG2 cell line.

Eukaryotic cells require iron for survival and have developed regulatory mechanisms for maintaining appropriate intracellular iron concentrations. The degradation of iron regulatory protein 2 (IRP2) in iron-replete cells is a key event in this pathway, but the E3 ubiquitin ligase responsible for its proteolysis has remained elusive. We found that a SKP1-CUL1-FBXL5 ubiquitin ligase protein complex associates with and promotes the iron-dependent ubiquitination and degradation of IRP2. The F-box substrate adaptor protein FBXL5 was degraded upon iron and oxygen depletion in a process that required an iron-binding hemerythrin-like domain in its N terminus. Thus, iron homeostasis is regulated by a proteolytic pathway that couples IRP2 degradation to intracellular iron levels through the stability and activity of FBXL5.

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