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] Barbe L, et al. (2008) "Toward a confocal subcellular atlas of the human proteome." Mol Cell Proteomics. 7(3):499-508. PMID:18029348 Information on protein localization on the subcellular level is important to map and characterize the proteome and to better understand cellular functions of proteins. Here we report on a pilot study of 466 proteins in three human cell lines aimed to allow large scale confocal microscopy analysis using protein-specific antibodies. Approximately 3000 high resolution images were generated, and more than 80% of the analyzed proteins could be classified in one or multiple subcellular compartment(s). The localizations of the proteins showed, in many cases, good agreement with the Gene Ontology localization prediction model. This is the first large scale antibody-based study to localize proteins into subcellular compartments using antibodies and confocal microscopy. The results suggest that this approach might be a valuable tool in conjunction with predictive models for protein localization.
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] Simon GM, et al. (2006) "Endocannabinoid biosynthesis proceeding through glycerophospho-N-acyl ethanolamine and a role for alpha/beta-hydrolase 4 in this pathway." J Biol Chem. 281(36):26465-26472. PMID:16818490 N-Acyl ethanolamines (NAEs) are a large class of signaling lipids implicated in diverse physiological processes, including nociception, cognition, anxiety, appetite, and inflammation. It has been proposed that NAEs are biosynthesized from their corresponding N-acyl phosphatidylethanolamines (NAPEs) in a single enzymatic step catalyzed by a phospholipase D (NAPE-PLD). The recent generation of NAPE-PLD(-/-) mice has revealed that these animals possess lower brain levels of saturated NAEs but essentially unchanged concentrations of polyunsaturated NAEs, including the endogenous cannabinoid anandamide. These findings suggest the existence of additional enzymatic routes for the production of NAEs in vivo. Here, we report evidence for an alternative pathway for NAE biosynthesis that proceeds through the serine hydrolase-catalyzed double-deacylation of NAPE to generate glycerophospho-NAE, followed by the phosphodiesterase-mediated cleavage of this intermediate to liberate NAE. Furthermore, we describe the functional proteomic isolation and identification of a heretofore uncharacterized enzyme alpha/beta-hydrolase 4 (Abh4) as a lysophospholipase/phospholipase B that selectively hydrolyzes NAPEs and lysoNAPEs. Abh4 accepts lysoNAPEs bearing both saturated and polyunsaturated N-acyl chains as substrates and displays a distribution that closely mirrors lysoNAPE-lipase activity in mouse tissues. These results support the existence of an NAPE-PLD-independent route for NAE biosynthesis and suggest that Abh4 plays a role in this metabolic pathway by acting as a (lyso)NAPE-selective lipase.
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] Ota T, et al. (2004) "Complete sequencing and characterization of 21,243 full-length human cDNAs." Nat Genet. 36(1):40-45. PMID:14702039 As a base for human transcriptome and functional genomics, we created the "full-length long Japan" (FLJ) collection of sequenced human cDNAs. We determined the entire sequence of 21,243 selected clones and found that 14,490 cDNAs (10,897 clusters) were unique to the FLJ collection. About half of them (5,416) seemed to be protein-coding. Of those, 1,999 clusters had not been predicted by computational methods. The distribution of GC content of nonpredicted cDNAs had a peak at approximately 58% compared with a peak at approximately 42%for predicted cDNAs. Thus, there seems to be a slight bias against GC-rich transcripts in current gene prediction procedures. The rest of the cDNAs unique to the FLJ collection (5,481) contained no obvious open reading frames (ORFs) and thus are candidate noncoding RNAs. About one-fourth of them (1,378) showed a clear pattern of splicing. The distribution of GC content of noncoding cDNAs was narrow and had a peak at approximately 42%, relatively low compared with that of protein-coding cDNAs.
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] Gerhard DS, et al. (2004) "The status, quality, and expansion of the NIH full-length cDNA project: the Mammalian Gene Collection (MGC)." Genome Res. 14(10B):2121-2127. PMID:15489334 The National Institutes of Health's Mammalian Gene Collection (MGC) project was designed to generate and sequence a publicly accessible cDNA resource containing a complete open reading frame (ORF) for every human and mouse gene. The project initially used a random strategy to select clones from a large number of cDNA libraries from diverse tissues. Candidate clones were chosen based on 5'-EST sequences, and then fully sequenced to high accuracy and analyzed by algorithms developed for this project. Currently, more than 11,000 human and 10,000 mouse genes are represented in MGC by at least one clone with a full ORF. The random selection approach is now reaching a saturation point, and a transition to protocols targeted at the missing transcripts is now required to complete the mouse and human collections. Comparison of the sequence of the MGC clones to reference genome sequences reveals that most cDNA clones are of very high sequence quality, although it is likely that some cDNAs may carry missense variants as a consequence of experimental artifact, such as PCR, cloning, or reverse transcriptase errors. Recently, a rat cDNA component was added to the project, and ongoing frog (Xenopus) and zebrafish (Danio) cDNA projects were expanded to take advantage of the high-throughput MGC pipeline.
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] Strausberg RL, et al. (2002) "Generation and initial analysis of more than 15,000 full-length human and mouse cDNA sequences." Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 99(26):16899-16903. PMID:12477932 The National Institutes of Health Mammalian Gene Collection (MGC) Program is a multiinstitutional effort to identify and sequence a cDNA clone containing a complete ORF for each human and mouse gene. ESTs were generated from libraries enriched for full-length cDNAs and analyzed to identify candidate full-ORF clones, which then were sequenced to high accuracy. The MGC has currently sequenced and verified the full ORF for a nonredundant set of >9,000 human and >6,000 mouse genes. Candidate full-ORF clones for an additional 7,800 human and 3,500 mouse genes also have been identified. All MGC sequences and clones are available without restriction through public databases and clone distribution networks (see http:mgc.nci.nih.gov).