An extensive database of 1.3 crore images mapping the close to 17,000 proteins in the human body was released on the Internet in Sweden for public use on Thursday.
Little did we know that a team of Indian professionals based in a laboratory out of Mumbai had been processing and chronicling this data that would be etched in human history.
A decade after the human genome project that mapped close to 20,000 genes in the human body was completed, Human Protein Atlas, which is a major multinational research project, launched an open-source database – www.proteinatlas.org – of human proteins present in all major organs and tissues and those restricted to specific organs like brain, liver or heart, etc.
"After genome was mapped 10 years ago, the logical step was to map proteins and figure out where in the human body they are present. Specific genes were selected and replicated in serum form in Swedish labs. They were injected in rabbits to produce antibodies.
Forty eight normal and 20 cancer-based tissues of close to 300 Swedes were extracted from different human organs and stained with these antibodies. Over a crore images of such tissues were then studied in a systematic manner to identify peculiar staining of the tissue to see it they possibly possessed such a protein that we were looking for," said Dr Sanjay Navani, site director, India, Human Protien Atlas (HPA) Program.
Navani said HPA has discovered proteins in different locations of the human body which no one had known of before. The location of proteins in the body will accelerate research in new avenues of medicine against diseases, especially cancer, as drugs are designed to target proteins.
Navani's team discovered that presence of SAT-B2 proteins in heavily-spread expanse of cancer tumour, most likely indicate that cancer originated in the colon.
"An absolutely fantastic array of proteins, which no one knew existed, were also discovered. If it is difficult to find the site of origin of cancer and target medicines, this information will come useful to zero down on treatment methods," explained Navani.
So far, 17,000 genes containing an equal number of proteins out of 20,000 have been mapped. "We are yet to map proteins of 3,000 remaining genes. We have a long way to go," Navani told dna.
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